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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102058">Le roi de Lahore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong'>paperandsong</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Le roi de Lahore [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera &amp; Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood, Blood Wedding, Canon Compliant, Dark, Dark Erik, Emotional, F/M, Faust references, France (Country), Gothic, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, India, King Cake, Lahore, Layla and Majnun, Le roi de Lahore, Malaria, Marriage, Medical Horror, Mirrors, Mirza and Sahiban, Operas, Orientalism, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pakistan, Persia, Poor Erik, Pregnancy, Punjab, Red Death - Freeform, Redemption, Religion, Romeo and Juliet References, Scorpion and Grasshopper, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Weddings, poor christine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:00:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>56,061</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102058</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik takes Christine on a strange and dark journey from Paris to Lahore where she learns about his life in Punjab, before Persia, and long before the Opera house. Christine must learn how to overcome the challenge and horror of her marriage. Erik's redemption arc is on a much longer timeline.</p><p>Leroux-based, post Leroux. Lots of opera and stories within stories.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Le roi de Lahore [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>138</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Music Teacher</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A mysterious couple arrive in a small coastal village, arousing much interest. The wife becomes the beloved village music teacher, but no one ever sees her husband. No one could have any idea who she really is or the strange journey that has brought her to live in this quiet place by the sea.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     In a small village on the Brittany coast, there was once an old house by the sea that was purchased by a strange couple. The couple arrived one day by carriage, and a neighbor caught only a glimpse of them as they entered the house, both dressed in dark clothing, their faces completely obscured by hoods and veils and shadow. The couple aroused much curiosity and discussion within the village. The house sat at the end of a long country road, on the peripheral of the village. They hired no staff, but ordered groceries delivered once a week.<br/>     That is, until around a year later when the wife emerged and it was found that she was lovely. She appeared first at mass one Sunday morning, dressed fashionably, but modestly in a light pink dress with a matching coat. She wore a bonnet with a crown of small silk roses. Her hair was worn down around her shoulders as if she were still a young girl. Later she was seen visiting the shops, making considered purchases. She was shy, but warm.<br/>     She noticed that the church had a small organ, but it was not played during mass. After a few months, she inquired about it and was told that no one in the village knew how to play it. It had been some time since the village had hosted any musician. She offered to play a few simple hymns one Sunday and in a few months she let it be known that she could offer music lessons from her home.<br/>While many remembered the year that mystery had hung over her house, once they met the young wife they found her charming and of suitable character to teach their children piano and singing. She told them her name was Cécile.<br/>     The children adored her. She spoke gently, never pricked their wrists as they played, never slapped their hands as their school teachers did. She kept a little bowl of sweets for them on the piano. When the lessons came to a natural end before the hour, she would tell them fairy tales while they lingered on the piano bench.<br/>The piano was in the foyer, very close to the front door so that students never stepped deep inside the house. The foyer was always full of fresh flowers - roses, lilies, tulips - such that when the students entered her home, it held that sweet, wet smell of a garden just after the rain. But by the end of their lessons, they often noticed a heavier, more sickening smell under the flowers. A smell they were not brave enough to name.<br/>“You always have such lovely flowers,” they would comment.<br/>“My husband orders them for me every week,” she would say with a soft smile.<br/>     No one ever saw her husband. He never attended mass and was never seen in the village. Though her students found the home bright and warm, the presence of this unseen man was a constant shadow over their lessons. They could hear him pacing in distant rooms or rumbling about in the basement beneath them. But they found the shadow stimulating. The young girls especially enjoyed the mystery of their teacher’s home. They would discuss it amongst themselves at school. They had all heard him. They had all seen their teacher’s expression shift from serenity to terror in an instant when there was a cough or an outcry coming from the other end of the house.<br/>     Only ten year old Annabelle Lemieux ever claimed to see him. He had actually cried out loud during her lesson, critiquing her scales.<br/>“Tell these damned children to practice before coming here! I cannot stand that awful noise,” it shouted. The music teacher steadied her face and placed a gentle hand on Annabelle’s shoulder.<br/>“Keep playing my darling. I will return at once,” and she left for another room. Annabelle was of course terrified of making another sound. But she was not too frightened to leave the piano bench and follow her teacher, at a distance. Down a sunny hallway, lit by numerous windows all overlooking the sea, the teacher slipped behind a closed door. Annabelle ran to peer through the keyhole.<br/>     At first she could not see them, but could hear them whispering. Her teacher was softly scolding him for interrupting the lesson. He protested bitterly. Then they moved into view. He sat down in a chair, with his back to the door. Annabelle could see two straps across the back of his bald head. He turned to the left and his face came into partial view. Annabelle gasped. His face, from the forehead to just above his jaw, was obscured by a dark leather mask. His voice was angry - Annabelle’s lack of talent and practice had deeply offended him and he implored his wife to be more strict with her students. And then he grabbed her by the wrist and brought her closer to him. He pulled his wife onto his legs and kissed her on the cheek. His hand quickly passed over her breasts, squeezing them. And then he let her go. Annabelle could not tell if her teacher had enjoyed the kiss or if she had been repulsed by it. As her teacher moved away, he fell to his knees and grasped her around the waist. He buried his masked head into her skirts.<br/>“Do not be angry with me, my love,” he implored. And then he began to laugh. It was a cruel laugh. Her teacher sunk down onto the floor with him, lightly touching the mask. Annabelle was not sure what she was seeing, and she was certain she was not meant to see it at all. She turned and quickly ran down the hallway, back to the piano bench to wait for her teacher to return. Her heart beat in her ears. She had seen him at last - her teacher’s husband wore a mask. She could not wait to tell her schoolmates.<br/>     Fifteen year old Anaïs Naud had also seen him, though in greater detail. A poor girl whose parents allowed her to roam the village unsupervised, she had the habit of spending time on the beaches - alone. One evening, after wandering far outside the village bounds, she realized she had come to the stretch of beach in front of the music teacher’s house, which sat high above the dunes. She herself did not take music lessons, but she, like all the villagers, knew the house well. She studied it for a time, contemplating what mysteries it held. In the corner of her eye she caught sight of a shadowy figure much further down the beach. The daylight was first beginning to fade from gold to rose. The figure seemed to absorb and devour all the light around it, creating a void of color on the sand. Anaïs was intrigued. She bunched up her skirts and stealthily climbed into the dunes. She crept along the shoreline until she could see the man’s pile of clothing - pants, a shirt, a coat, a strap of leather she mistook for a belt. From behind the dunes she looked for the man swimming in the dark, frigid waters. He stayed under for long periods of time. His white head would surface for just a moment and then he would disappear again. And then he fully emerged from the water, returning to the sand. Anaïs covered her mouth to keep from shrieking. The long white body was emaciated beyond possibility. A walking skeleton. His sickly skin was taught over his bones. And his face! His left cheek was but a gash, revealing his teeth and gums. His deep set eyes were black holes, trapping all light, reflecting none of it. And no nose. She was certain he was Death incarnate. She lay face down in the sand, burying her head into her elbows. She prayed that when she lifted her eyes again he would be dressed and gone. But instead, she felt small droplets of cold water falling onto her bare forearms. She fearfully looked up. He stood over her, unashamed of his nakedness, of his ugliness. He laughed at her, as if he enjoyed the fright he had given her. Poor Anaïs covered her eyes with her shaking hands.<br/>“Even little women are so inquisitive,” he muttered, turning away from her and wandering off, towards the house. She told no one.</p><p>     The women of the village wanted so much to understand Cécile. How could someone so bright and young and lovely be married to such a shadow of a man? Where was he, they would ask. Wouldn’t he like to join us? The questions pricked her skin, but they were well-meaning. She was always cordial, never breaking her smile or causing discomfort to her examiners. Invitations to tea were many, and if she had to decline, it was only because there were obligations at home she must attend to. But occasionally she allowed herself, or was herself allowed, to visit with her new acquaintances, mainly the mothers of her students. Annabelle Lemieux’s mother made one such invitation and the music teacher eagerly accepted. She wished to clear up any misunderstandings about her husband’s outburst during Annabelle’s last lesson.<br/>     She arrived at the Lemieux home at four in the afternoon. Her mauve coat was taken by the maid, a silver tray of tea and delicate pink cakes were served in a cozy room. The two women were left to talk at last. Mme. Lemieux was tactful, but forward about her interest in Cécile’s marriage.<br/>“We never see your husband. Has he been well?”<br/>“I am afraid he is not.”<br/>“I am so sorry to hear it. When he is feeling better, he must come out with you and meet us. We are all so eager to meet him.”<br/>“I am afraid he is often unwell. He must usually stay indoors.”<br/>“How long have you been married now, Madame? You are so young!”<br/>“A little over two years.”<br/>“You still have the glow of a newlywed!”<br/>“A glow?”<br/>“And where did you have your wedding? What kind of flowers did you carry?”<br/>“Marseille. It was very small.”<br/>“Just your family?”<br/>“My parents died long ago.”<br/>“Forgive me, my dear. I am so sorry.”<br/>“No, no. It’s alright..”<br/>“And did he take you on a voyage de noces?”<br/>“A what?”<br/>“Did your husband take you to travel after your wedding, my dear?”<br/>“To travel?” she asked in a far off voice.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>My first fanfic (of any kind). Comments, reviews, and feedback are very much appreciated. Even though the story is now complete, every interaction with readers is pure gold!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Le roi de Lahore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>An innocent question about her wedding provokes the confusing memory of the first few weeks of her strange marriage.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     She closed her eyes. Just a moment, just a flutter of her eyelashes. The poor woman could not have known. Questions of weddings and flowers and voyages must seem so innocent. She could not know the world of pain the young woman had lived in just those two years.<br/>     The wedding in Marseille was scarcely a sacrament at all: a priest, hastily arranged, a signature forced by hand, a ship passage to Constantinople purchased for the same day.<br/>“We must leave France for a while. They will be looking for us,” he had said.<br/>“They will never stop looking for us,” she said with both hope and bitterness. “Someone will always want to bring you to justice.”<br/>“And I suppose someone will always be looking for you as well. To take you away from me. Let them try.”<br/>     He wore a black cloak with a large hood that hid his mask, but it could not hide his formidable presence. She too kept her face hidden; the wound on her forehead was bruised and scabbed over. It was unsightly. They were given strange looks every moment they walked about in daylight - from the streets of Marseille to the doorway to their estate room on the ship. He had arranged first class accommodation, planning to never leave the rooms for the length of the voyage. They had little luggage - a single trunk between them. Much less than he would have wanted; they had left Paris in a hurry. But he had plans to buy her all the pretty dresses she could desire. He had so many plans, he had merely to stifle his disbelief that they were all coming to fruition. And she, the centerpiece of it all, she was right here beside him - as his wife!<br/>     She spent her wedding night vomiting. The sea was rough, causing her to lose all hold on her equilibrium. She felt her body adrift, unmoored to the Earth. She sobbed. He tucked her into the large bed and dimmed the light. She pulled her knees up to her chin as if for protection from what she knew was surely coming. But he did not touch her. He knelt down beside the bed and sang softly to her the wedding-night song from Roméo et Juliette. He waited for her to sing her part, but she only turned her head away. After singing, he recited the story of the star-crossed lovers until her face ran with tears.<br/>     It took days for the nausea to subside. He attempted to care for her, as he had in the past, but she refused all gestures of kindness. Even a glass of water would be smacked from his hand.<br/>“What will we do in Constantinople?” she asked at last, as he had never told her.<br/>“From there we will go all the way to India and back again. We will visit my old friends.”<br/>“What old friends?”<br/>“You don’t think I’ve lived my whole life under the Opera? I had a life before Paris. I have traveled the world. I have made many friends!” She did not believe it. “You and I are going to take our talents abroad. We will show the world what Paris did not want to see.”<br/>“I will not sing for you,” she declared.<br/>“You will sing. For me and with me. We will make beautiful art together.” She turned away.<br/>     Each night he tucked her into the bed and made a nest for himself on the sofa on the other side of the room. Despite that he sang to her and told her stories of the Opera, they were sleepless nights. Her body was tense and defensive against him, but he had only one nightly request - a kiss on her damaged forehead, to which she submitted.</p><p><br/>     These were liminal days when he was gentle and kind to her. He wanted desperately for her to love him and to not hate him now that she was his wife. He spoke softly to her and sang to her often. He ordered food brought to the room for her. He let her eat in peace, drinking his wine away from her sight so as not to turn her stomach and ruin her dinner. She never saw him eat. She did not know if he needed to eat.<br/>     He wore his mask, always. She knew his face well and there had been a time when she had insisted she was not bothered by it. There was a time when she had burned his mask to prove to him that they could pass the days together without barriers to their friendship. But he knew she was his unhappy companion now. It had always been his plan for her to fall in love with him before revealing his true face - so that she might love his voice and his intellect and come to love his flesh and blood in time. He would try again.<br/>     Fate links me to thee forever and a day! She contemplated these words, tracing the rope burn on her wrist with a finger. The further they drifted from France the more this frightful creature became her entire world. She had heard him sing, she had seen him cry and rage, she had made him happy with the smallest of kisses. He had confessed to her his whole unhappy childhood, and she had confessed to him her very happy childhood and her grief over her orphanhood. She knew this man. In a little church in Marseille there was even a certificate that said he was now her husband. Her fate was now bound to his.<br/>     They left the room together only in the shadow of night, to walk along the deck, to take in the fresh air and to behold the black void of the sea in the absence of the sun. He would offer his arm to her and when she refused he would grasp her upper arm tightly as they walked, so frightened was he that the water would call to her. He would tilt her chin up to the stars and tell her the stories of the constellations, guiding her eyes across the horizon with a gloved hand.<br/>     He continued the nightly practice of singing to her and reciting the stories of the great operas: Orphée et Eurydice, Tristan und Isolde, Roméo et Juliette, Lakmé. He would often lay his head down on the bed beside her as he recited these stories of other lovers, from distant lands, in the hope that she might grace him with a hand laid on his cheek.<br/>     The night before they were to arrive in Constantinople she asked for Faust.<br/>“Last time it was left unfinished,” she said bitterly.<br/>“I have another idea. If you will not sing for me, will you tell me a story? As we are heading East, will you tell me the one of Le roi de Lahore, so that I might hear you speak to me, even if only about how much other people once loved each other?”<br/>     She agreed and sat up in the bed. He knelt down and placed his head near her where her legs were extended under the blankets. He laid a hand between them, which she did not hold. She spoke in the clear voice of an actress:</p><p><br/>“<em>There was once a beautiful priestess who lived in the temple of Indra. Her name is Sita and she is pious and good. One day, her uncle, Scindia, minister to King Alim, tries to seduce Sita. She refuses him and foolishly tells him that she has been visited by a mysterious stranger in the night, through a trap door in the temple walls, and that this man is her true love. Scindia is enraged and swears he will get revenge on both Sita and her lover. He asks the high priest, Timour, to release Sita from her vows of abstinence so that he might have her for himself. Timour advises him that only King Alim can release the women of Indra from their vows. Scindia denounces Sita for her sin - although she swears the mysterious man has never so much as laid a finger on her head. Scindia orders her to death. King Alim, who has just come to visit her through his trap door hears everything. He steps in to protect her - and reveals himself to be Sita’s lover. The high priest Timour denounces them both as sinners and orders King Alim to war as atonement for defiling the temple of Indra</em>,” As she recited her story, his long, bony fingers moved under the blankets towards her legs. They were cold on her skin. She sucked in her breath in surprise. She briefly hesitated, but he turned his black eyes on her and implored her to continue.<br/>“<em>Sita goes to war with him and waits in his camp while he is away fighting. When Alim returns, wounded, she is there to hold him in her arms as he dies,</em>” His fingers moved towards her sex. They danced on the flesh outside, lightly asking for entry. She moved to push his hands away, but weakly. She wanted to know. She slowly, almost imperceptibly opened her legs for him. But she continued the story.<br/>“<em>He ascends to heaven and kneels before Indra. He begs for the god's grace and mercy - that he should return to the earthly arms of his love - and Indra is moved! He will have him reincarnated - not as the powerful king he once was, but as a common peasant, bound forever to Sita’s fate. If anything should happen to her, it will happen to him as well. He finds this acceptable - he would not want to live in a world where she was not,</em>” He stroked her slowly, his thumb pressing on her bud while pushing his other fingers as deeply as they would go. She pulled at her own hands, pressed them into the bed, not knowing where to put them. It became harder for her to concentrate. He pulled his fingers in and out, more quickly. But still he demanded that she continue the story.<br/>“<em>Sita mourns his death - and continues to defend herself against Scindia’s seduction, who has now taken her prisoner- ah!</em>” He pulled away the blankets and beheld his wife. Her body shuddered. She threw up her hands over her head in surrender. He ran his hands the length of her, over her eyes, her breasts, her belly, her sex, her thighs. He worshiped her with his hands. He implored her to finish her story. Don’t stop. Tell me the end. What happens to them?<br/>“<em>Alim finds Sita again through a trap door. He finds her deep in prayer -ah! He reveals himself to Sita - he is alive! She does not care that he is no longer king, she loves him only for himself, for the beautiful soul she sees when she looks at his face. She wants only to hold him in her arms again. They try to escape together, but the evil and vengeful Scindia traps them. Sita, in desperation, pierces her breast with a knife. And, as Indra has bound his fate to hers, Alim dies with her, in the same instant. And they ascend into their pagan-vision of Heaven: Paradise!</em>”<br/>     He stopped. He buried his skull into her belly and wept. She was startled. Softly, she placed her hands over the rough skin of his scalp.</p><p>_________________</p><p>     Mme. Lemieux reached for another pink cream puff. The evening was fast approaching, their tea was near an end. <br/>“No, we did not travel after we were married. We stayed in Marseille.”<br/>“Oh,” the older woman filled her mouth with icing and cream. “And how did you meet your husband? I forgot to ask that first.”<br/>“He was my music teacher.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Paper World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Erik and Christine arrive in Constantinople and venture out into the world beyond the stage.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     They disembarked in Constantinople; two moths from the cocoon, malformed by their transformation. The sun blinded them, their heavy cloaks trapped the heat against their bodies. He quickly called for a carriage to take them to a grand hotel where they slept the rest of the day in a bed that seemed to rock with the waves they should have left behind with the ship. They rested side by side, but did not touch.<br/>
     She awoke before him, just as the sun was setting over the city. She heard the muezzin raise his voice over the streets. She did not yet know why he sang, but she closed her eyes and appreciated the sound of another man’s voice. She felt immense homesickness, deep in her core, a painful tightening in her chest. She thought of the letter, the scrap of paper she had pressed into the hands of the innkeeper in Marseille. Please, she begged the old woman, please send this to Paris right away.</p><p>“<em>He is taking me to Constantinople. I don’t know anything else. Please come find me, my love. C.</em>”</p><p>     She jolted with fright. He had come up behind her without a sound and brushed his cold hand against her bare arm.<br/>
“My dear,” he said softly. He stood just behind her, gazing out the window alongside her, his mouth close to her ear. “It is a lovely scene, isn’t it? Until now, you have only seen the world from the stage: temples painted onto screens, the chorus in costumes and dark make-up, librettos from authors who have only dreamed of the places they write about. A world of paper and song. But I have seen the real world. I will show you the world of wonders, the world of flesh and blood. Come, let us go out into the city.”<br/>
     They dressed and descended onto the street. She voluntarily took his arm for the first time. They came upon a night market illuminated by colorful glass lanterns and small kerosene lamps, casting a golden and forgiving glow onto everything around them - including her husband’s masked face. They passed rolls of silk, mounds of spices, chains of jewelry. He purchased a delicate golden bracelet and snapped it onto her left wrist, to compliment her wedding ring. <br/>
     He had wanted nothing more in this life than to take his wife out on a Sunday. It may not have been a Sunday. They no longer had any idea what day of the week it was. They had entered into a dream in which distinctions between the days of the week or even the day and the night no longer mattered. <br/>
    They returned late to the hotel. His hands clutched at her. He pulled her into a misshapen embrace. She might have returned it, but her arms were pinned to his chest. She leaned her head into his collar bone to avoid his mouth.<br/>
“My angel,” he inhaled. “You have made me so very happy.” He held her in silence for a moment. He felt her resignation. “Let me make you happy too.”<br/>
“Tell me where we are going.”<br/>
“Why, all the way to Punjab. We will meet with my dear friends from long ago. They will be so happy for me, that I have found a wife at last. And all along the way we will sing, and our audiences will be enraptured by our love on stage.”<br/>
“I will not sing,” she insisted, her head still pressed against his shoulder.<br/>
“You will sing. I will make you want to sing again. Come, let us lay down.” He helped her undress. The room was very hot and she lay on top of the blankets in her chemise. Gently, he laid himself next to her. He smelled like rot. He always had. But he also smelled like the spices they had handled in the market, like myrrh and sandalwood, and really it was as he had said; one has to get used to everything in life. He reached out across the bed and took her hand, then slipped his fingers into her chemise and over her breasts. He passed his cool hand from one to the other, making circles over her skin. <br/>
     He was once so moved by a single kiss on his forehead, and yet he seemed to know well how to touch her. She contemplated his other contradictions: his childish handwriting to his musical fluency, his murderous rage to his deep tenderness, his Death’s head to the life that clearly ran through him. Had he once loved another woman? Had he at least spent time in brothels? But that kiss, that single kiss she had laid upon his forehead had moved him enough to release her would be rescuers - it was as if he had never before felt the lips of a woman on his skin.<br/>
     And now his hands moved down towards the hem of the chemise. He pulled the light cloth up over her legs and hips. He settled himself between her thighs. Her skin was crawling. She had no idea what he might be doing. She knew nothing. As her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see his gaunt face clearly. He had taken off his mask. His eyes, black holes during the daylight, were two burning coals gazing upon her through the darkness.<br/>
“Christine,” he whispered with a deep sigh. He grasped at the flesh of her thighs. In her body he found all that was lacking in his own, from her luscious hair to the fat that filled her frame. He buried his skeleton’s head into her sex. She felt his tongue slide between each fold. She was blinded by pleasure, and in that blindness, images danced before her mind’s eye: her husband, dressed all in red, stalking her, walking among the living, taunting them. He would come for all of them one day, but he had come for her now, to be his bride. And now Death consumed her from the outside in. He continued to lick and suck and lightly bite her, drawing out groans from deep inside her chest. When the pleasure became unbearable she began to push his skull away. He took her wrists and held them to the bed. Her feet began to twist and squirm. She didn’t know what to do with herself. But he knew to hold her down and push her through it, to meet her on the other side of it. She cried out and gasped. Her whole body grew tense, and then released. In her exquisite exhaustion, she whispered his name, “Erik!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, I hope you're enjoying. Reviews are deeply appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ascension, Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Christine agrees to sing again.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    They slept very late. She opened her eyes before him, but she lay very still for several hours, hoping not to wake him. She was growing weary of his constant presence. He never allowed her a moment alone. At least when he was sleeping she could think quietly to herself. <br/>     She no longer thought of escape, but she did think of what she had left behind. She thought of that final night at the Opera, the terror of falling through the stage, down into a darkness from which she had still not emerged. She had not recovered from his terrible threats and equally traumatizing groveling. They haunted her. And she could make no sense of the ending. She had kissed him on his forehead and, inexplicably, all the misery was over. He wept. He let her rescuers go and turned to her and released her as well. Only she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She did not believe he was really letting her go. His hold over her was two-fold; she felt profound pity for him and knew without any doubt that if she left he would surely die. And she thought of his beautiful voice and felt the world would be a dimmer place without it. <br/>     But almost as soon as she had agreed to stay, his happiness turned to a repulsive giddiness and she regretted her decision. How could she have forgotten how dangerous he was - he had just a few hours before threatened to murder the entire Opera house. The voice was one and the same with a murderer, and now she had pledged to be his bride. What darkness had seeped inside of her to lead her to such a choice? <br/>    He had to abandon his plan to marry them at the Madeleine. He instead moved them quickly out of Paris and to Marseille. They had married before she had time for a final confession. And then they had left the country altogether. There was no way back, only forward. Her fate was linked to his.<br/>     It was late afternoon by the time he awoke. He began to dress himself hastily. He had business to attend to, he said. What business could he possibly have, she thought skeptically. <br/>“I will have them send in food for you,” he said, sliding on his coat. “And there is a lovely bath here in this room,” he opened the door for her. “You would probably enjoy a bath. I will be home in a few hours.” He kissed her on the cheek in the most banal way. As if she had been his wife for many years. As if she had allowed him to kiss her cheek all along.<br/>     She emerged from the bed only after he had gone. The bathroom was covered from ceiling to floor in intricate, interlocking patterns of blue and green tile. There was a large mirror, which unsettled her. She saw that the scab had fallen off her forehead, leaving a light scar. She nervously looked behind the mirror, wondering all the time if he could be watching her on the other side. But why would he bother? He could see her any time he liked now. He had gone, she had heard the door close behind him, but still she looked behind her as she undressed and entered the water. She felt his eyes on her always.<br/>     She savored the hot water and the loneliness. She began to sing softly to herself. She noticed the pleasing way the music bounced off the tile and began to sing louder, until the entire room filled with the sound of her high, sweet voice.  <br/>     She thought of what they had done and what they had left undone. They had been married almost three weeks and he had truly not laid a finger on her until the last two nights. She knew very little of these things, but even she knew that what they had done did not constitute a consummated marriage. Even the church would probably agree - it was not too late for an annulment. If her letter had ever reached Paris, if anyone were on their way to find her, it would not be too late. <br/>     Did she dare to think that anyone might try to find her? That boy had tried so hard to save her and in the end she had refused to take his hand and follow him into the light.<br/>    <br/>     When he returned he was very animated. He carried parcels and presents for her. He pulled out an envelope of very fine stationery. <br/>“This one, open this one!” But he did not wait for her to open it. “We have received an invitation from the British Embassy. You have been invited to sing in three night’s time.”<br/>“I don’t want to sing,” she dropped the envelope. “No, I told you that.”<br/>“Yes, you will sing. And they will adore you.”<br/>“I’m not your student anymore. I no longer sing for you.”<br/>“No, you are no longer my student. I have taught you all I can about your voice. Now I am your husband, and I will teach you about the world. And I say we will go to the Embassy in three night’s time and you will sing for all the British officers and their wives.”<br/>“I will not! I will not do it! I am no longer your doll that you bring out to play,” her frustration boiled over. It was clear to both of them that the problem wasn’t that she didn’t love to sing. The problem was that he was asking her to sing for no reason other than his own pleasure. <br/>“What extortion have you employed now? Why would the British Embassy invite us anywhere? I am tired of your games and threats!”<br/>“There is no extortion. I have not threatened anyone. It is not often that a classically trained soprano from the Paris Opera passes through this city. I knew they would appreciate the offer.”<br/>“Why didn’t you go to the French Embassy? I do not even speak English.”<br/>“It is best to stay away from the French authorities. You understand that.” And then he said, as if it were a great favor to her, “You know, you may sing any piece you like.” She was silent. <br/>“My apologies, my dear. I will send our regrets at once. I wanted only that others might hear the perfection of your voice. You, who once made the angels weep.” She looked away. He took her hand and said softly, “You complained recently that your last performance as Marguerite went unfinished. Why not select a few pieces from Faust and finally conclude that night? It has been left hanging over us all this time.” She considered this, gently tugging her hand away from him. “You have every right to be angry about that night. I did interrupt you - although you had almost finished.”<br/>“You took me away just before Marguerite sees Faust’s hands dripping in blood! Before she could accuse -”<br/>“Enough,” he said sharply.<br/>“Before she could be resurrected!”<br/>“Let us finish it then.”<br/>“Alright,” she said with finality. “But I will not sing with you. If I sing, it will be alone.”<br/>“Anything you wish,” he found her hand and pressed it to his lips.</p><p>     The day of the performance he brought home the dress he had ordered her the very day the invitation had been received, before she had ever agreed to sing, as if he had always known the outcome. She opened up the box to reveal a white gown with matching leather gloves. It was beautifully made from local silk, laced with silver thread.<br/>“It looks like a wedding dress,” she frowned. <br/>“So it does. You sing Marguerite with such innocence and purity of soul.” <br/>     He had bought himself a new suit as well, dark and well cut. She marveled that he always dressed himself so elegantly. Where does he get all of this money, she thought to herself. What crimes does he continue without my knowing? Clearly he knew about clothes; he had been able to provide the dressmaker her exact measurements without ever having measured her with anything other than his hands and eyes. But it did not matter what he wore, he could not hide his unsettling appearance. He could wear a mask and gloves, but he could do nothing to change the unnatural frame on which the fine clothes hung.<br/>     She dreaded the concert. Outside of Paris, he suddenly felt emboldened to walk around as if he were simply a normal person. And perhaps in the streets of Constantinople, where one might encounter a person, man or woman, who obscured their face for any number of reasons - from religious piety to simply keeping the dust out of one’s eyes - he could walk about freely without causing disruption. But how were they to attend a formal evening at the British Embassy, among the officer class and their conservative wives without disrupting their notion of the natural order? <br/>     She detested the way he had orchestrated the whole event, down to the color of her dress and she was doubtful that he hadn’t extracted the invitation in some surreptitious or even violent manner. But she was full of such pity for him. She wanted to protect him from the scorn of others. She could not bear the idea that they might show him fear, or worse still, that they might laugh at him. She kept these thoughts close as she dressed herself. She flinched as he appeared in the mirror behind her. He presented her with a set of small emerald earrings.</p><p>“You cannot sing <em>Je ris de me voir</em> without any actual jewels.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know how you are feeling about this story and where it's going!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ascension, Part 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He suggested that returning to Faust might bring her resolution, but it only brings him guilt.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     To her astonishment, the evening was wondrous. They were greeted warmly by the organizing diplomatic service officers and not at all like they had been threatened into inviting her. She was to sing between the speeches and the dinner, which were all in commemoration of some event very special to the British expatriate community, and which meant nothing at all to the two French exiles. She received the evening’s program, printed on thin but fine paper. She was listed as <em>Cécile Garnier</em>. <br/>“But why?” she asked him quietly. <br/>“Miss Daaé could not sing here tonight. Miss Daaé disappeared from Paris over a month ago.”<br/>“I could have chosen my own fake name,” she whispered bitterly.<br/>     She had prepared to sing both <em>Il était un roi de Thulé </em>and<em> Je ris de me voir</em>, while he accompanied her on the piano. Her voice was pure splendor, her face radiant, her body lustrous in her white gown. She stood before the piano so that she could not see him as she sang. But she could feel his eyes on her and she sang for him.<br/>     The gracious audience was moved. Afterwards, the hennish officer’s wives crowded around her to shake her gloved hand - and his. His English was quite good and she could only smile and nod as he accepted their praise on her behalf. <br/>“Mlle. Garnier!” they called out. “But what brings you East? How long shall you stay? Please sing another for us!”<br/>“It is Mme. Garnier,” he corrected. They did not stay for the dinner, though they were invited, but they did drink all the wine that was offered to them and when the carriage returned them to their grand hotel he carried her up the steps of the great hall and all the way up to their rooms on the high of triumph, much to the discomfort of the front desk. She laughed and folded her arms around his neck. He was certain that she could not be angry with him now, the evening had been too perfect. <br/>“Now you are able to bask in the full praise of your transcendent Marguerite - the praise that I stole from you. Will you forgive me now? It is finished.” He began to work on the buttons of her gown, as it was not possible for her to undo them herself.<br/>“But it isn’t finished,” she whispered. “Her soul has not been resurrected.”<br/>“You couldn’t very well sing the final act alone. You chose the pieces and you chose to sing alone. But it was brilliant!” He had reached the last button. His hands hovered over her shoulders, wishing to push the straps off, but not knowing if his touch would be welcomed.<br/>“Let us sing the end together now,” she said softly, still facing away from him. He gasped and grasped her shoulders tightly. He buried his mask in her hair. She had come back to him - she wanted to sing with him again! </p><p>He began mournfully:<br/>“<em>My heart is pierced with horror!</em><br/><em>Oh, torture! Oh, source of eternal remorse</em><br/><em>And remorse eternal! Behold her there,</em><br/><em>It is she, that sweet creature</em><br/><em>Thrown into the pit of prison like a vile criminal</em>!”<br/>As he sang, her hands traveled up to meet his hands where they gripped her shoulders. Her fingers wove themselves into his fingers. Her touch was so unexpected that his voice wavered, almost overcome with emotion. <br/>She sang:<br/>“<em>Ah! It is him! It is him! My beloved! At his call, my heart resounds</em>,”<br/>“<em>Marguerite!</em>” He called. <br/>“<em>Even amid the laughter of demons, I recognize his voice!</em>”<br/>“<em>Marguerite!</em>”” <br/>She turned to face him, though her eyes were cast on the floor in such a way that he came to believe she was merely play-acting. She took his skeletal hands in hers and raised them as she continued.  <br/>“<em>I am free! He's there! I hear it! I see him! Yes, it is you, I love you,</em>” she sang, looking up and into the distance. Then she placed a hand on his cheek, over his mask. She sought his gaze at last, but he couldn’t meet it. He closed his eyes at her touch and her voice, so sweet and so close. <br/>“<em>These iron chains, even death; they cannot scare me anymore!</em><br/><em>You have found me, here I am!</em>” <br/>He responded:<br/>“<em>Yes, it's me, I love you, despite the effort of this here mocking demon,</em><br/><em>I have found you. You are saved! It is me, come my love!</em>” <br/>He circled her waist with his arms, across the soft silk of the gown, and pressed his face into her neck. His hands searched for the back of the gown, which he had already opened and was now slipping off of its own accord. To his delight she pushed her arms out of the straps so that he could pull it to her feet, leaving her in only her corset and petticoats. <br/>“<em>Come Marguerite, let us flee!</em>”<br/>“<em>No, stay still</em>.”<br/>“<em>O heaven, she doesn’t understand!</em>” <br/>He fell onto his knees before her, to worship her, but she slid to the floor herself and pulled him into her embrace. He no longer thought she was play-acting, he could feel the blood pulsing through her neck and chest. He passed his hands over her hair, her eyes, her singing mouth, down her arms, over her breasts. And though his touch was cold and bloodless, it excited her. She too began to run her hands up his long arms, up towards his face as she sang. Slowly, she pushed her fingertips under the leather and pushed the mask up over his eyes and off his head. He looked away from her, but he was not angry. She lightly held his face in her hands as he continued to caress her and sing to her. His skin seemed so brittle she feared hurting him. Her fingers lightly traced the curves of the bones of his cheeks and jaw. <br/>She sang:<br/>"<em>My God, protect me! My God, I implore you!</em><br/><em>Pure angels! Radiant angels!</em><br/><em>My spirit longs with thee to rest! </em><br/><em>My God, I surrender myself to thee!</em>”<br/>“<em>Marguerite</em>,” he sang softly. <br/>“<em>Why this threatening look?</em>”<br/>“<em>Marguerite!</em>”<br/>“<em>Why are these hands red with blood Go! You horrify me!</em>” <br/>      The words rang so true they almost broke the spell. But the scene was not yet over. As there was no chorus to accompany them, he held her tightly and sang the final words himself, so that she might ascend out of the darkness into which he had pulled her:<br/><em>“She is saved!</em><br/><em>Christ has risen!</em><br/><em>Christ is born again!</em><br/><em>Paix et félicité!</em><br/><em>Aux disciples du Maître!</em><br/><em>Christ vient de renaître,</em><br/><em>Christ est ressuscité!"</em> <br/>     <br/>     Tears streamed down their faces. He cupped her head in his hands. Tentatively, his lips moved across her cheek and onto her lips. She had been afraid of this inevitable kiss for some time. His mouth was cavernous and when he opened it wide in song it threatened to swallow her up. Even as she had grown used to his Death’s head, his opened mouth still frightened her. Deep down that dark tunnel, to the pit of his core, that was where Death resided. But she did not turn away. His tongue sought to part her lips and she submitted. He trembled in her arms. <br/>     When he broke the kiss she thought that surely he would take her now. She grasped his shoulders in expectation. But he did not move. He merely held her, weeping, “Christine est ressuscité.”</p><p> </p><p>___________________________________</p><p>Here is a lovely performance of <em>Je ris de me voir</em> accompanied by piano. Just imagine that Ms. Prokofieva is wearing a white dress and this is the image of Christine's performance at the Embassy.<br/>Gounod Faust Jewel song Anastasia Prokofieva soprano, Sergey Rybin piano:<br/><a href="I%20found%20this%20really%20lovely%20performance%20of%20Je%20ris%20de%20me%20voir%20accompanied%20by%20piano.%20Just%20imagine%20that%20she%20is%20wearing%20a%20white%20dress%20and%20this%20is%20the%20image%20of%20Christine's%20performance%20at%20the%20Embassy.&lt;br%20/&gt;%20Gounod%20Faust%20Jewel%20song%20Anastasia%20Prokofieva%20soprano,%20Sergey%20Rybin%20piano&lt;br%20/&gt;%20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIRYuSGVKY&amp;;list=RDQzIRYuSGVKY&amp;;start_radio=1">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIRYuSGVKY&amp;;list=RDQzIRYuSGVKY&amp;;start_radio=1</a></p><p>See Chapter 24 for links and notes to all the music for this story.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading! Please let me know your thoughts on where this is going.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A Scrap of Paper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Poor Erik cannot let himself be happy.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>   When she awoke around noon, he was already fully dressed and sitting in a chair next to the bed. He had replaced his mask. An enormous bouquet of flowers had been sent to their room from the Embassy and there was a little pile of envelopes, sealed with wax and ribbons, all addressed to a Mme. Cécile Garnier. She began to sort through them with excitement, glancing up at him as she read them aloud. They were invitations to sing. There was one from the French Embassy, at which she guffawed and tossed aside. There were several more personal invitations that she read aloud, mockingly, expecting that he might join her. But he did not. He looked very grave.<br/>     She then discovered among the letters a mere scrap of paper, crumpled and dirty. Her face went white as she recognized her own handwriting.                                                       </p><p>
  <em>He is taking me to Constantinople. I don’t know anything else. Please come find me, my love. C. </em>
</p><p>     She shook in fear as the letter had been written in fear and it brought upon her shoulders all the old fear that she had just recently begun to put away. <br/>“I thought that you should know that no one is coming to rescue you from me. No one even knows that you have left France.” <br/>     She was silent, staring into her hands, tears welling up in her eyes. <br/>“It is not too late. I release you. You are free. You can go back and everything will be as it was. You are no longer my prisoner.”<br/>“I have not been your prisoner for some time.” <br/>“It is not too late. You could go back to the little church in Marseille and rip up their papers. I have not touched you in any way that cannot be undone. They will give you an annulment. We are not truly married, are we?”<br/>     She did not believe him. She did not believe that he would really let her go. He was playing a game, but he would not explain the rules to her, and he would never let her win. <br/>“What would you do, if I returned to France?” she asked, still staring down at the little paper in her hands. She twisted it in fear.<br/>“I will go to Lahore, just as I have said.”<br/>    There was no way to return to her life before. He knew this. Why did he bring her all this way, only to cast her out? Why now, after the closeness of the night before? What did he want? What had he ever wanted from her? <br/>     He wanted a declaration. So she would give him one.<br/>“But what self-destruction is this?” she asked. “I should have woken up this morning wrapped in your arms, not with this, this little note thrown in my face! You have carried this in your pocket since Marseille and you have chosen this morning of all times to present it to me!” <br/>     She jumped out of the bed and ran towards the lamp in the corner. She removed the glass and within seconds the letter was ablaze in her hand. <br/>“So no one is coming for me, eh? You don’t think I could have rescued myself? I could have escaped you at any turn!” <br/>     The letter was engulfed in flames that reached her wrist. Without thinking she dropped it to the floor. He jumped up to stamp it out, as he was wearing shoes, and she was not. <br/>“It was written a lifetime ago. I was just a girl. A child,” she cried. “Poor Erik, who cannot recognize happiness even when he holds it in his hands.” <br/>     He trembled in awe as he pulled her close to him. <br/>“Do not send me away now that I am so close to loving you. Take me with you to Lahore, as you said you would.”<br/>“It is a long way to Lahore.”<br/>“Take me with you,” she said, pressing her forehead into his neck with relief.<br/>“You will be my Sita,” he whispered.<br/>“I do not want to be Sita. Sita dies,” she said, closing her eyes. “I want to live.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Night Travelers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The journey to Lahore begins at night.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    She came to understand that sunlight was painful to him. He would flinch and cover his black eyes if she opened the curtains to their room too quickly. When he had business, he usually left the room in the fading light of afternoon. When he wanted to take a walk, it was always in the darkness of night. She had always believed this was to better hide his ugliness, but she now knew it was also to protect his thin and sickly skin which would burn and blister in the light of day.<br/>     He was very busy in their final days in Constantinople. He made all the arrangements and did not ask for her opinion or thoughts on anything. He had made this journey decades before but she was worried that he did not know everything he claimed. And she worried about how they would travel the many, many days it would take to reach Punjab, when the sun was so bright and unforgiving.<br/>     Their final evening in the city he took her on a carriage ride. She realized she had never left the hotel in daylight, only ever in darkness, all illuminated by kerosene and stained glass lanterns. She had only seen the sun through the latticed window of their room. <br/>“You see that white palace on that hill? The Yildiz? Yes, I helped install a number of secret rooms there for the old Sultan.” She did not believe him. Not that he couldn’t have built such rooms - she recalled several in the house on the lake - but that he couldn’t have been in so many places at once as he liked to claim. <br/>     The carriage brought them to the Lütfullah Gate of the Grand Bazaar where they got out and entered the crush of people and sound and smell. He held her hand, so as not to lose her, as they made their way through the ancient labyrinth. No one gave him a second glance, no one turned from him in fear. He led her out the Sandal Besten Gate and into the night. They wound their way up the dimly lit streets towards the Hagia Sophia. It was not open, but a closed door had never stopped him before. They found their way in and as quietly as cats they wandered through the columns and hallways. The lamps were turned low and the immense space was filled with as much darkness as light. He observed her as she lifted her eyes to the vaulted ceiling in wonder.<br/>“Do you still believe in God Christine, after everything that has happened?”<br/>“Don’t you?”<br/>“I believe in the angels and the heavenly bodies that have given us music. But if there is a God, he has never remembered his poor son Erik.” She found him supremely ungrateful. <br/>     They returned on foot to the Bazaar where they found a man waiting for them. Erik greeted the man in his language and from that point on Christine could only follow where she was led. The carriage took the three of them to the Eastern boundary of the city where there were three more men waiting for them around a fire. Behind the men were nine camels packed with bundles and canvas sacks. Their trunk was unloaded from the carriage - she had not seen it loaded there at the hotel. But the trunk would have to go and all their belongings were repacked into canvas sacks and loaded onto a camel. It had always been his trunk, which he had packed with her things on her behalf. As it was all taken out she saw that he had brought much more with them than she had realized. He pulled from it his violin, which she recognized from the house on the lake. He also pulled out a stack of loose papers held together by a rough swath of leather. His compositions. But what could he do with them here? <br/>     One of the men came forward, leading two beautiful dark horses, tacked in elegant bridle and saddle. Erik took the reins of one and handed them to Christine. “She is yours,” he said, cradling the mare’s head in his arms. She had the delicate face of a finely bred Arabian. Her nose fit into the palm of Christine’s hand. “You will find your riding clothes in the carriage. Please change there.” She almost asked for his help undressing, but he had already turned to the four men as they discussed their plans in Farsi. In the carriage she found riding trousers and a blouse that he had ordered made for her, along with a pair of leather boots. She struggled to remove her dress and corset on her own in the cramped but private space. It was the last time she would be alone for a long time. It was almost midnight when they began their departure from the city. <br/>“We will travel at night and sleep during the day. I’m afraid I could not endure traveling under the sun for as long as it will take us to reach Lahore.”<br/>“How long will it take?” she asked.<br/>“It will take us months.”<br/>“Who are these men?”<br/>“They are travelers too. You see their camels carry many wonders - sacks of spices, rolls of silk. I have paid them to guide us and I have paid them extra to travel at night.”<br/>“We will always travel at night?”<br/>“It is the only way for me.”<br/>     And the world was turned upside down, time inverted, night into day, the moon into the sun. He resumed his lessons on the constellations, but the stars were different here and had different stories to tell. “At dawn, turn back towards the West and find, not the Pleiades, but the Hands of ath-Thuraya, embracing the horizon. And while the rest of the world awakens we will pitch our tents and eat our supper and lie down to rest in the shadow of the light of day. At sunset we will stir and break our fast and resume our journey.”<br/>     It was arduous. Christine was not used to riding for hours on end and her body ached from head to foot, but mostly from the insides of her legs. She felt sleepy at all hours; it took weeks to learn how to ignore the sunlight that seeped into the tent and find rest. He would sing to her while on horseback, to keep her awake and to cheer her. The animals enjoyed this. Their traveling companions did as well. But she was sometimes overcome with loneliness. Erik could at least speak Farsi and at least had the company of other men. And Erik did not even care about the company of other people. She had only her horse to talk to. <br/>   She grew to enjoy the company of their four fellow travelers despite that she could not speak their language. Their leader seemed to be Amin, the oldest. The three others were named Farhad, Mehdi, and Vahid. She pieced together that Mehdi and Vahid were brothers. Erik had little patience for serving as her interpreter, but she did manage to ask Farhad to help her find a name for her mare. They would break at midnight for rest and a meal. Mehdi or Vahid would usually start a small fire around which they would sit and drink tea until it was time to resume. It was after these meals that someone usually played music or stood up and recited a poem that made everyone except Christine laugh. Sometimes Erik or Christine would offer their own music.<br/>     He slept with his arm locked possessively, protectively around her such that she could only sleep with her back pressed against his chest or with her face curled into it. He refused to sleep any other way. “The highway is a dangerous place. You cannot go out alone, not ever.” <br/>“Do you trust our companions?”<br/>“I do, but I do not believe they could do much if we were attacked by thieves. You must stay close to me, even in sleep, even during the day.” This sleeping position made her intimately aware of how poorly he had always slept. His haunted dreams often caused him to jolt or push out defensively at some unseen enemy, waking her up in fright. <br/>     When he was unable to sleep at all in the afternoon heat, his hands would wander her body. He would clutch her close to him and she could feel his hardness press into her legs. He might remove his arm from across her chest and rest his hand at her sex, pressing firmly into the bud with a single finger, or he might guide the thing to rest on the backs of her thighs, and then higher up, just under her curves. She would remain still and pretend to sleep, until her breath or heartbeat or wetness would give her away and he would push his fingers all the way into her and bring her to climax in that way. Or sometimes she would let him taste her again. Or sometimes he would lead her hand towards his cock and she would pull back in resistance or fear or rejection and it would all be over. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading! Any thoughts so far?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Leyli o Majnun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Their traveling companion recites the epic of Leyli and Majnun.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  It was near dawn when Farhad slowed his camel’s gate so that he might line up with the masked man on horseback. As he drew near he saw that the man had his mask off and he quickly looked away in pity. The man fumbled to cover his face and in a rough voice asked what Farhad wanted. <br/>“Monsieur, I have thought of a good name for your wife’s horse. Please, tell her for me.”<br/>“What is it?”<br/>“Mahtab! Please, tell her what it means.” The man turned to his wife and spoke to her in their language. He could tell by her voice and the delicate way she repeated the word that she was pleased with his suggestion: <em>Mahtab</em>, the light of the moon. <br/>“Would you like a name for your horse as well, sir?”<br/>“I can name my own horse.” Farhad understood that the man was unhappy with him. They were not supposed to see him without his mask. But he usually rode without it during the night, thinking they could not see him. <br/>     As the sun rose and Farhad laid down to rest in the tent with the other three, he told them what he had seen.<br/>“His face looks like a skull’s face. He is missing a nose. Poor man.” <br/>“He unsettles the animals,” said Mehdi. “But then he sings and they settle down again.”<br/>“Hush!” hissed Amin. “Go to sleep.”<br/>“But I cannot sleep - it is so bright!” complained Farhad.<br/>“We are being paid well for the inconvenience. Shut up and let the others rest.”<br/>“But what do you think of his wife? Can she be happy? She always looks so sad,” he pondered aloud.<br/>Amin sat up from his pallet with a jerk.“But really Farhad, you must shut the fuck up. Do not even look at her! That man is paying us well, but he is very, very dangerous.”<br/>“Just who is he, Amin?” asked Vahid with concern.<br/>“We will not discuss it further! None of you antagonize him and for all that is holy, show nothing but respect for the Madame.”<br/>“Why doesn’t he want us to pass through Tehran? It makes no sense.”<br/>“Do not worry about it. He has paid us more to bypass the city than we ever could have made there. Go to sleep, all of you.”</p><p>     More than the others, Farhad enjoyed it when the couple sang. He was a poet himself and often wrote out verses in his head to the rhythm of his camel. That evening, as the travelers drank their midnight tea around the low fire, he stood up and announced that he would like to perform the epic of Leyli and Majnun to their foreign guests. Amin shook his head, but it was futile to try and stop the boy. Farhad turned to the masked man and asked if he would interpret for his wife.<br/>“That is a very sad story,” he said.<br/>“Yes, but it is the most beautiful story in our language. Please, please tell the Madame the meaning of my words.”<br/>    Farhad took a deep breath and began the tragic tale of the two lovers, Leyli and Qays:</p><p>    <em>There was once a girl named Leyli - </em>Monsieur, please tell her Leyli means night <em>- she was as radiant as the midday sun suspended in a cloudless sky. And when the boy, Qays, a boy as precious as the full moon in all its splendor, first saw this girl, the first cut of love was deep. </em><br/>    Farhad’s voice was sonorous and lilting. Sometimes he burst into song. Christine was enthralled by his performance, even as she knew her husband was not relaying all of the poetry in his interpretation. In fact, Erik was annoyed to be tasked with retelling Farhad’s story in French and was not attempting to capture the artistry in any way.<br/>     <em>Even as children they knew their fates were bound together by eternal threads when they were pushed together under the tutelage of the same master teacher. They each loved the other, but Qays was consumed by their love. He walked around in a stupor reciting poetry praising her beauty and purity, singing songs to everyone and no one, until they began to call him Majnun, because he was possessed by love, as if it were a jinn. It became his identity - the one possessed by love for Leyli. And Leyli’s family became embarrassed that their jewel of a daughter should be under the spell of love for a madman. They sequestered her and forbid that she ever see the boy again. Leyli was betrothed to an older man from another village who took her far away. But everyone knew, they always knew, that Leyli loved Majnun and Majnun loved Leyli.</em><br/><em>     Majnun, eaten away by longing for Leyli, abandoned his parents and wandered the wilderness for years. He did not eat or sleep. He grew so thin his skin hung from his bones. He wrote poems for her in the dust, he sang her praises to the animals. The people of the village, who had tormented him for his devotion to Leyli, now saw the tragedy they had caused and felt remorse. They laid out food for him in the wilderness. They prayed for him. Leyli, for her part, saved herself from her husband’s touch, so as not to dishonor the love she still held for Majnun. They met in secret, they sang to each other from across streams, recited poetry from across hillsides. But they did not touch. No, they never touched. Theirs was a perfect love; they had no other desire than to live in the shadow of the other. </em><br/><em>     Leyli died and was buried first. Everyone knew she died of a broken heart. Majnun threw himself onto her grave. It was the closest he ever came to an embrace. He died there, on top of her. They are buried side by side, because, even though they were never married,everyone knew theirs was a perfect love, an eternal love, may they rest forever in each other’s arms in Paradise. </em><br/>     Christine wept into her hands. Farhad realized too late that it had been a bad selection for that night. Everyone cries at the end of Leyli and Majnun, but the Madame was openly sobbing. He had not meant to touch her so deeply.</p><p>"Your story made my wife cry," the masked man said to Farhad from across the fire. "You must never do that again."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Perfect Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The night travelers are invited to a village wedding.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“<em>He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love</em>.”</p><p>      After circumventing the city of Tehran and the entire province of Mazandaran for reasons only Erik understood, putting them days off course, the weary night travelers arrived at a small mountain village very near exhaustion. As the sun rose, they found a small clearing by a stream just outside of the village bounds and began to tie up their animals and erect their tents. Mehdi and Vahid walked to the village to find food and when they returned they informed the others that the entire village was in the midst of preparing for a large wedding. In their merriment, the villagers had invited them all as guests. It was agreed that, as both the animals and the humans in their party should rest and, as the village had already welcomed them, they should all enjoy the feast and travel no further for at least a day.<br/>     After sleeping the entire morning, the travelers awoke in the late afternoon, just as music began to drift from the village. They fanned out into the cold mountain stream to wash up, Erik and Christine around a little bend, out of the view of the other four. In her modesty, Christine waded into the water still clothed in her chemise, which quickly became transparent as she poured water over her head. Erik sat on a rock observing her, and the others, ensuring they did not creep too close. When she was finished, she dressed herself carefully behind the rocks and sat with her back turned away so that Erik could bathe as well. She had never seen his full nakedness. As she heard him enter the water, she turned her head just enough to see him in her peripheral. His emaciation was something that she had felt through his clothes, but she had never seen it in the light of day. It hurt her heart. He took off his mask to wash his face, but quickly replaced it.<br/>     They had not yet acquired local clothing because they wore riding clothes all night and slept all day and never saw anyone but their companions. So they dressed in their European clothes, Christine in a simple green dress with a high neckline, Erik in the dark suit he had worn to the Embassy. Amin picked out a deep green silk scarf from his stock and presented it to Erik with the explanation that Christine should cover her hair. As she tied it over her head, he noticed that she wore the little emerald earrings he had given her. He reached out and held one between his thumb and index finger. He twisted it so that it glinted in the light. <br/>     Amin picked out a bolt of light blue silk to offer as a wedding present, Erik tucked his violin under his arm. Together, the six night travelers set out for the wedding.<br/>     The feast was already underway when they arrived. They were greeted with the open-armed hospitality of long lost cousins and handed plates of roast lamb and full cups of sweet wine. The dancing had not yet begun, but the music was already loud. It was probably Farhad who had made it known among the guests that the two foreigners were master musicians and that the strange, masked man’s offer to play should be respected and immediately accepted, and that requests should also be made to hear his wife sing. <br/>     One would think that Death would be an unwelcome wedding guest, but when he carries a violin and offers to play the sweet music of angels for the bride and groom, he cannot be refused. After all, Death is an angel too. And when Death brings his beautiful bride to sing at his side it can only be a blessing for a lifetime of happiness free of darkness or loneliness or ugliness.<br/>     After the feast, when the real party had begun, their four companions were quickly lost in the crowd. They would not see them again until the next day. Erik was absorbed into the wedding band, adding his instrument and burning energy to their orchestra. Christine was escorted to a tent full of the bride’s sisters and cousins and aunts. <br/>     The women were having their own party, enjoying their own reserves of sweets and wine. They pulled Christine into their chains of dance, they filled her plate and cup, at one point a small child was placed into her arms and kisses were encouraged. She was overwhelmed by their warmth. She had missed the company and touch of other women, the visual delight of their clothing, the sound of their voices. She hadn’t known how deeply she had missed them until that moment.<br/>     In the back corner of the tent there was a table with a large silver framed mirror and a silver candelabra with seven candles alight. There were little bowls of honey and crystalized sugar and spices spread out around the mirror. She had not seen her own face since the last time she washed it in the sink of the luxurious bathroom at the hotel in Constantinople. The mirror tempted her. She leaned into it and did not recognize the face that looked back at her. She was paler than she remembered, having been asleep during the sunlight hours for at least two months now. Her eyes were encircled in shadow. She looked weathered, her hair a wild mess. Did she look happy? Was it Erik that appeared behind her?<br/>     A woman touched her arm gently and pointed towards the entrance of the tent. There Erik waited outside for her. She was embraced and kissed as she said farewell. An old woman pressed into her hand a small bundle of sweets tied up in a white handkerchief. She held it to her nose. It smelled like honey and rosewater. She did not want to leave the warm light of the tent, but he was there, standing outside in the darkness, beckoning her.<br/>    He placed her hand inside one arm while carrying his violin in the other. They walked to the outskirts of the village, towards their camp, the edge of wilderness. They passed by their empty tents. Mahtab and her mate slept standing under a tree, the camels snoring softly nearby. They spent time standing by the stream, quietly regarding the night expanse and the growing number of stars. Music drifted from the village as the wedding continued. <br/>“They will be very happy,” she said with certainty, her head arched up towards the sky. <br/>“What do you know of happy marriages?” he said bitterly. His eyes glowed amber in their unnatural way, burning a hole right through her. “You are not really married, are you?”<br/>She frowned. “We were married by a priest in Marseille. You arranged it yourself.”<br/>“Yet there are rites that remain undone,” he said. He moved to stand behind her and fold her into his embrace. The air was getting colder as dawn approached. <br/>“Why did Farhad’s story make you weep?” he asked, touching his mouth to her ear. <br/>“I don’t know,” she shook her head. <br/>"Something he said moved you. What was it?"<br/>“It was the image of Majnun throwing himself on her grave, closer to her in death than he ever was in life.”<br/>“But don’t you want a love like that? A perfect love?” He pulled her hair aside and wrapped his hand around her neck. He laid an acid kiss on her skin. “Don't you want what Leyli had? The kind of love so perfect we need never touch each other again? A love that transcends desire and lust? An epic love about which they will weep and sing and recite poetry for centuries?” His other hand wandered down her dress and possessively took a hold of her sex over her skirts. He pushed her back into his body and she could feel him swell behind her. “I could sing to you from across rivers, profess my love for you from the distance of a mountain top to keep myself from pawing at you as I am now. Is that what you want? For me to never, never touch you again?” <br/>     Her eyes rolled back as she leaned into him.<br/>“No, no that is not what I want,” she whispered. <br/>     He could feel her pulse strengthening in her neck. He supported her weight by pressing the entire length of her body against his.<br/>“If you wanted it, I would sit in your shadow and write music and worship you like the goddess that you are. I have already done so for such a long time. I would lay at the feet of Christine, perfect and pure, for all eternity, and I would never touch you again. If that is what you wanted.” He gathered her skirts in his hand.<br/>“No, no don’t say it. That isn't what I want.”<br/>“Then say what you do want, Christine. What kind of love do you want?” <br/>     His fingers sought out her bare skin from amongst the folds of cloth.<br/>“I want to learn to love you,” she said tentatively. <br/>     His fingers dug deep into her flesh. He shook his head.<br/>“You can do better than that. What kind of love do you want?”<br/> “I want you to touch me,” she pleaded. “I want you to touch me and to never stop. I want your hands on me like this forever.”<br/>“<em>Christine</em>,” he said out loud merely because her name itself was a jewel in his mouth. He roughly turned her face to his and kissed her, while pushing his fingers further into her sex. “You must love me! It is unbearable to have you so close and yet so far away. You must love me, please!” His intensity was terrifying. She began to weep.<br/>“Yes, yes I love you!” she cried.<br/>“Say it!”<br/>“I love you, Erik!”<br/>“Tell me what kind of love do you want?” he pulled his fingers in and out of her quickly now.<br/>"I want the bones of your hands on me, I want your mouth on me. I want an earthly love - an imperfect love. Pleases don’t stop."<br/>“You must touch me!” he pulled her hand behind her body, towards his pulsing sex. She pulled back but he did not let go. “Touch me, Christine,” he insisted, gasping for breath. “Please, my angel.” <br/>     She let her hand go limp and he guided it over himself, hard and throbbing and threatening through his trousers. She shook in fear. It was the last part of his body that she did not know, more terrifying to her than even his rotten mouth. <br/>     She could no longer stand. He laid down his cloak and pulled her to the ground. <br/>“Say it!”<br/>“I love you! I do, my angel, I love you,” she said desperately. He climbed over her and again pulled her hand towards it. He unbuttoned his trousers and placed her hand over it. It was cold, like the rest of his body, but pulsing like a living creature. He pushed everything aside and lowered himself between her extended legs. He stopped, for a moment, to remove his mask, and then kissed her there with all the tenderness of his heart. He wanted only to taste her sweetness; she was already ready for him. Her hands wandered nervously over his scalp, under his collar, up his neck, until there was a point of urgency and her fingertips began to grasp and pull at him to move up into her embrace. <br/>“Oh my Christine, my angel! You must love me,” he cried into her shoulder. <br/>“I do! I do love you!” she insisted, fearing he would dissolve into sobs.<br/>“It will hurt now,” he warned her. She put her arms around his neck and winced as he guided himself into her. He held her forehead in his palms and kissed her, over and over as his tears overflowed onto her face and mingled with her own tears.</p><p>     The wedding music faded away as the sky was beginning to lighten. There was a final cry from the villagers, clapping and ululation. <br/>“Let this night be our wedding night,” Christine spoke into the cold air. “Let the blessings of that happy couple be our blessings too.” She pulled out the bundle of sweets she had been given. She broke off a small crumb of honey cake and placed it in his mouth.</p><p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope you find this chapter sweet enough, despite their strained dynamic. </p><p>This has been my quarantine project even though quarantine, for me, has not meant any more time and has actually meant less hours to live inside my head. Please leave a comment or review and let me know how you feel about this story. I love reading comments from readers! Thank you for staying with me!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Sleepwalking Land</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The journey to Lahore comes to a violent end.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wanted to warn you that this chapter has a very violent ending, which is a departure from the previous chapters. Thank you for reading all the way to this point. I'm sincerely grateful for all the comments with additional information and interesting takes on the scenes. I hope I can keep it interesting enough for you to stay with me until the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  And so the one who was once possessed by her in all his thoughts and actions and machinations now possessed her completely. The devotion he had enjoyed while he was her teacher had returned and it was soul crushingly sweet. Where once she had flinched in fear at the mere brush of his fingertips, he could now lay a single finger at the nape of her neck and she would do anything he asked of her. While before, she had slept under his arm because he demanded it, she now folded herself under it each night with a peaceful sigh. When it was cold, she would cling to him, although he could not make her warm. He knew he could now lead her anywhere and she would follow, without further resistance. She would follow him to the end of the earth and back.<br/>     Amin, though, was beginning to question Erik. As they moved across Persia and into Afghanistan, the nights became colder, the mountain passes more treacherous, the animals more exhausted and clumsy. The constant sleepwalking was weighing heavily on all of them. Amin feared there would be an accident or that they would be robbed. <br/>“We must travel during the day, Monsieur.” But Erik would not concede. He had made a plan and he had paid them for it; he expected obedience. </p><p>    In the third month Christine realized that she could understand Farhad when he spoke to Mahtab. The cloud of sound lifted and Farsi materialized before her, one word at a time. She quickly learned the commands the men shouted at the camels, but Farhad spoke to her horse in poetry. He often spoke of honey. One day, as he slipped the bridle over Mahtab’s head, he called her the light of his eyes. But why would her horse be the light of his eyes? She kept this secret close. <br/>     Time wore on, days into weeks, weeks into the fourth or fifth month. Lahore seemed as unreachable as heaven itself. Their faces were cracked from exposure, their clothes threadbare, their eyes weak. They bathed when they could, but it hardly mattered when their clothing was all so dirty that no amount of washing it would ever make it clean again. The smell of rot and death was especially strong on Erik during these days. <br/>     He once awoke to find Christine shredding the thin cotton of a chemise into strips.<br/>“What are you doing, my love?” She did not want to say. Only when he insisted did she explain that she had no other cloth to bleed into. Her shame hung in the air between them. It had not occurred to him before. He wondered what she had done the previous month. How did she keep it so discreet that he never knew? <br/>    There were times, crossing through Turkey and Persia, that she caught sight of a train in the distance and wondered if there were some reason they were not traveling that way. It was as if Erik wanted to take the hardest route possible. But she hadn’t seen a train in a long time now. There were days when they saw no one else, no village, not even a cow. There was no one to sell their silk to. Christine would sit and watch Amin and Medhi and Vahid and Farhad say their prayers in the mornings and evenings and she would take the time to say her own prayers. She asked God to help them make it to Lahore.<br/>     At midnight tea, Christine would sit around the fire and listen silently. Now that she could follow the conversations, she better understood the dynamics between the five men. She came to realize that the four were very, very tired of traveling in darkness. Every night they introduced to Erik another reason why they should begin traveling by day. But he was insistent, it could be no other way. They added lanterns to the saddle of each camel to better light the path ahead, to better sleepwalk through dark fields of red poppies that they could only smell and not see. <br/>     Somewhere near the Khyber Pass, Amin’s fears were realized when a camel slipped off the narrow mountain path. It dangled pitifully as they frantically cut the rope so that it did not drag the others down with it. After it settled on the side of the mountain, legs broken and twisted, Medhi climbed down into the darkness to cut its throat and relieve it of its misery. He solemnly retrieved the canvas sack the camel had carried. <br/>     They were invited to no more weddings, but witnessed a funeral procession at dawn. The white of the mourner’s clothing glowed under the first rays of sunlight. Christine was moved to see it, though it only deepened the travelers’ melancholy. <br/>     Weeks later, the end was finally in sight. Lahore was but two nights away; they would reach the city by sunrise after the second night. And then the group would take disparate paths. To commemorate their last full night together, they sang and played music and recited poetry around the fire one last time. As desperate as Christine was for the journey to end, she was sad to think they would soon have to say goodbye. They had been so kind to her and when they were gone, Erik would again be the only person in this world who was not a stranger to her.<br/>     As they lingered by the fire for just a moment more, the animals began to stir. Erik stood up quickly. Out of the night there appeared three men wielding knives and shouting commands. One seized Medhi from behind and held a knife to his neck, while another began untying the camels. The third stood threateningly between Medhi and the others. Erik pulled Christine to her feet and pushed her behind him. She grasped his waist in fear. Amin and Vahid began to shout and protest, but they did not step forward, for if they did, surely Medhi’s throat would be cut. <br/>     Suddenly, Farhad rushed from the darkness with a rock and hit the man holding Medhi captive in the head. The man loosened his grip on his knife and stumbled to the side, allowing Medhi to escape his grasp. <br/>     Then there was a whistle in the air and the man holding the camel’s rope gave a sharp cry of pain as he dropped his knife and reached for his own throat. In an instant Erik was behind the man, pulling the nearly invisible cord that had wrapped itself around his neck with fatal centripetal force. The cord, weighted by a leaden disc, had snapped the man in the eye, which was now bleeding. Erik pulled the cord with his gloved hands, cutting the skin of the man’s neck and tightening his airways to a pinpoint. The man’s face turned purple. In his struggles he reached his hands behind him, attempting to push Erik away, to scratch his face, to gouge his eyes out. But instead the man inadvertently pushed the mask up onto Erik’s forehead, exposing his Death’s head to the four for the first time. His eyes were burning so brightly now that they appeared to spark and emit flames of rage. All who witnessed it, his friends, his enemies, even the love of his life, screamed in horror. His Death’s head was also screaming and the sound of it was so chilling that his victim fainted before he died. But even when the man was dead, the cord continued to encircle his neck, pushing blood up into his face until it poured out of his eyes, until it had cut into enough skin and artery and viscera that the head lolled to the side, held on only by the bone.<br/>      The two surviving thieves broke the ring of screaming and escaped. But now Amin and Medhi and Vahid and Farhad stood in shock at what they had witnessed. Christine also stood perfectly still and silent. Erik returned to himself and dropped the man’s body to the ground. He felt the urge to pursue the fugitives, he was certain he could catch them. But he could see that one death was more than enough to undo all the work of the past year to make her love him.<br/>     Amin snapped out of his stupor.<br/>“We are done with you, Monsieur. We will be on our way now.” Medhi and Vahid quickly gathered the reins of their camels. Farhad slowly approached Christine where she stood across the fire from her husband.<br/>“Madame, come with us,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “He is mad.”<br/>“Go now,” she said. “Do not let him hear you say that.”<br/>“Please come. We will protect you. You cannot stay here with him.”<br/>“Go now, friend. He would never hurt me," she lied. "Go now, please.” Farhad was immensely disturbed. But how could he leave her there, alone in the middle of the highway? “He will kill you,” she said gravely.<br/>“Then may God protect you, Madame.” He placed his hand over his heart. He climbed onto his camel and turned back once more, to see them staring at each other from across the dying fire of their camp. It was not the way he had wanted to say goodbye. Amin untied the canvas sack with all of their belongings from his camel and let it drop to the ground. He, for one, did not look back. </p><p>     When they were alone, with only glowing embers and the partially decapitated body between them, Christine covered her face and dropped to the ground. From the pit of her stomach there came a wailing over which she had no control. She could not stop. He took her up in his arms and put his bloodied fingers through her hair.<br/>“Christine, forgive me.”<br/>“Murder!”<br/>“They would have hurt you -”<br/>“You really did murder Buquet! And you really would have murdered Raoul, and even your friend, and everyone at the Opera house! I never believed you would have done it until now. You really would have done it if you hadn’t gotten everything you wanted!” She began to wail again. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed. He released her from his embrace. “God help me! Please help me!”<br/>     He looked up at the sky. Dawn was fast approaching. They needed to move. It looked like Amin would finally get his way and force him to travel under the light of the sun. They couldn’t sleep here, or anywhere now, and it was still a long way to Lahore. <br/>     After hiding the body away from view of the highway, he inspected their belongings. They would ride his horse together and put the sack on Mahtab, but it was currently too heavy for her. He took everything out and began throwing things on the fire to reduce weight. Books, clothing, including dresses of hers that he quickly determined to be out of fashion and of no use anymore, keeping only her white gown and her simple green frock. This rekindled the fire and it was soon roaring. She watched him sort through her belongings in this way and she was suddenly enraged by both his petty selfishness and his profound malice. <br/>     There on the ground she saw the leather that bound his sheets of music together. His life’s work, all in one place. His very essence and soul expelled from his gut onto the page - and yet it had not purged him of anything. He had not triumphed over anything. His music burned, he had said, so she wanted to see it burn. Before he could stop her she grabbed it all and raised it over her head. Some of the sheets were lifted up by the wind, but the rest went down into the flames. He cried out as if in pain and she immediately dropped to the ground and cowered from him. And he really did lift his hand to strike her but he stopped himself. He was too exhausted, and a part of him knew he deserved what she had done. They needed to be far from this place by the time the sun came up. He loaded the sack onto Mahtab and mounted his own horse. He then pulled her up to ride behind him.</p><p>     Poor Christine, she really did not know him at all. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Return to Lahore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After a harrowing last day on the road, Erik and Christine arrive in Lahore filthy and exhausted.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art of strangulation.</em>”</p><p>      On the northern outskirts of Lahore, there was once a large haveli inhabited by a sprawling family ruled by a criminal patriarch. The inside of the house was vast, much larger than it appeared from the outside, though the outside was also impressive with numerous latticed jharokha windows. There were steep staircases at all corners and numerous, intricately carved doors, most of which were opened and shut all day long as the family went about its domestic business, though there were some doors that went unnoticed. Its three stories towered over a central courtyard with a fountain and clay stove, where all laundry and cooking was done. It was the heart of the home. <br/>
     It was a house of many rooms, including seven formal bedrooms, each decorated in a different color and a balcony facing inward, onto the courtyard. In a third floor room of emerald green with silver elephants stenciled on the walls, a young woman sat at her desk obesrving the comings and goings of her extended family below. Her name was Sanaa, and among all her many cousins, she was the most beloved granddaughter of the patriarch, Baba. She had been given a very good education and presently, she sat with a short passage from Hugo that she was meant to translate from the original French into Punjabi. A little list of irregular verbs was taped to the wall above her desk by the window. Her French tutor was very strict and would be checking her work the very next day.<br/>
    She heard a shout from below and leaned out of the window to see what it might be. There in the courtyard was a man on horseback with a woman behind him, her arms wrapped indecently around his body. Another horse trailed behind them. Her family was beginning to gather around them, making a lot of commotion.</p><p>    The house had an internal culture, understood only by those who lived within its walls, mostly centered around Baba, his caretaking and completing performance of gratitude for their family’s wealth, however ill begotten through networks of young pickpockets, the extortion of local business owners, opium smuggling, and other such crimes. There was also a rich household tradition of storytelling, often with the purpose of frightening children into behaving. When Sanaa and her cousins were young and lived in the Blue Room, if they were especially naughty, they would be gifted with a frightening tale that was intended to improve their behavior but only served to further spark their excitement. <br/>
     At the time Sanaa’s father was a child, a young French man had come to stay in the house to learn from Baba all the tricks he knew - those kinds of tricks which had made Baba a wealthy man in spite of his humble beginnings. The man was very clever and learned all that Baba had to teach him and in turn, he invented his own tricks, his own games, his own unique weapons and gave them back to the family. He would even make small mechanical toys for the children of the house, much to their delight. He could perform tricks with his voice and make it sound as though his voice were coming from any direction. His voice could make one cry or laugh or cower in fear. He learned their language quickly and could soon sing their songs better than anyone else in the house. He could have settled in Lahore, become a very wealthy man, married a beautiful woman. Only he was very, very ugly. <br/>
“How ugly?” the children would cry out.<br/>
     He wore a leather mask to conceal his ugliness and if anyone ever saw him without his mask they would die. <br/>
The children would scream with false terror and real delight. <br/>
     One day, your Auntie was dared to lift his mask while he worked in the courtyard. She crept up behind him and asked him to show her the toy or weapon - no one remembers which - that he was working on. He held it up to her and as she stepped forward she reached out and grabbed his mask.<br/>
“And did she die?” the children would ask. <br/>
     No, she didn’t die. Not then, but later. But that is a different story. <br/>
“And what did he look like? Tell us!” <br/>
     And here the story would take different forms depending on the storyteller. Sometimes he had the face of an animal, or the face of a ghost, or a jinn, or a shaitan, or no face at all. No one who had been alive when it happened remembered exactly what was wrong with his face, only that he flew into a rage when his mask was lifted. He left the house soon after this. Baba and this man were no longer the great friends they once were. But he did say he would come back one day. If the children of this house are too naughty, he will come back and this time he will make you pull off his mask himself so that you can stare into the horror of his face! <br/>
     And the children would not be any better behaved but they would play even louder and rougher than they had before.</p><p>      Sanaa remembered this story as she leaned out of her window. Her aunties leaned out of their own windows from the Violet and Rose Rooms. She watched her uncles carefully lower the woman off the horse, for she was lifeless. The man dismounted and as his feet touched the ground, it was as if he had set the earth trembling, for murmurs and shouts rippled through her family. He was very tall, dressed in a dark and filthy suit. But of course, the most astonishing thing about him was that he was wearing a mask over his face. He took the woman from her uncles’ arms and cradled her with a closeness that made Sanaa fear for her. He stood, waiting for them to allow him inside. <br/>
“Go find Baba! Go find him now!” <br/>
     As Sanaa watched from above, she was filled with dread. Was it possible that everything they had told her as a child was true?</p><p>     Baba emerged from his White Room and slowly entered the courtyard where most of the family had now gathered. His wizened frame, wrapped in billowing white robes, turned sideways as he descended the three steps between the doorway and the ground, leaning heavily on his cane. Erik stood before him, holding Christine as if she were a child. Only the oldest of Baba’s children remembered the masked man, but all knew exactly who he was. They waited nervously  for Baba’s lead. He regarded the couple before him. He took Christine’s listless hand in his and gave a deep sigh of concern. He called one of his daughters-in-law to him and whispered instructions. Then the tension shifted; Baba had invited them inside, preparations would need to be made, a room prepared, what to do with these horses?<br/>
     They were led upstairs to the third floor and shown into the Red Room where the walls were painted bright carmine with golden horses stenciled around the ceiling. Erik laid Christine gently on a bed covered in a red silk quilt embroidered with golden threads, embedded with tiny cuts of mirror. Whichever family members had once occupied this room had quickly cleared out their belongings and left it open to the couple. Many people stood outside the door, peering in. A man, Sanaa's father, came in with their bag and placed it in a corner. Someone else brought a basin and pitcher of water to the room, which Erik accepted before promptly closing and locking the door. <br/>
     He pulled Christine’s ruined boots from her feet, peeled off her disgusting riding trousers and unbuttoned her blouse. He wet a rag with water and carefully washed the dust and grime from her face and neck. <br/>
“Christine,” he called. “My angel, wake up.” But she did not wake up. He found a somewhat clean chemise from their bag and carefully dressed her in it, lifting her up to thread each arm through the sleeve. He delicately laid her down again, smoothing her hair around her face.<br/>
     He then addressed the skin of his own face. The twelve hours of riding under the highway sun had done all the damage he feared it would. At first he had used his dark cloak to protect himself, but the thing became so hot and heavy with sweat that he abandoned it on the side of the road. He tried to cover his head with her scarf, like a turban, but it had not been enough. The skin on his scalp had burned and was already beginning to peel away. Sweat had been trapped under his mask for so many hours it had caused blisters that now stung as he tried to clean them with the rag. He couldn’t bear the idea of putting the mask back on; his entire face was in excruciating pain. And yet he knew that whenever he ventured outside the Red Room he would have to use it. He shed his own soiled clothes and decided he would later order their travel clothes burned. <br/>
     He cautiously laid his exhausted body next to hers. Though his eyes were heavy, he kept them open a moment to watch her sleep, her chest rising and falling under the thin cotton of her chemise. He ran a hand from her cheek to her hip. She felt warm, but he attributed this to her sunburned cheeks. He leaned in closer so that he could kiss her face, her neck, her breasts. And then, with a sharp pain in his heart, he remembered what she had done to his music. She had been so hateful. And why? All because he had disposed of a thief who might have turned his knife towards her, who might have harmed and raped her? Death was gruesome, he knew. But couldn’t she understand he had done it for her? How could she be so ungrateful to her Erik? He would kill a thousand men who tried to harm her. She had asked for God's protection, against what? Her own husband? He found that his hands were holding her head, pressing her temples lightly with his thumbs. He jerked his fingers away.<br/>
     The one she should really hate was Amin! He and his men had stranded them on the highway without food or water or protection from the sun. They had barely made it to Lahore. Traveling in the light of day, he had both attracted rude gawkers and repelled terrified families to the other side of the road. It would have seemed to others that he had abducted his wife had she not clung to him so intimately, her fingers locked around his chest, her face buried into his back.<br/>
     The dead must travel fast - more than once he sent the horses galloping through a village so that he did not have to see their horrified faces. How he hated to see people and their horrible faces!<br/>
      His grand return to Baba’s haveli had been marred by their filthy, sunburned presentation and Christine’s inexplicable black out. He would need to speak to Baba soon. At the very least, his expectation that they would be welcomed into Baba’s home and well taken care of had been entirely correct. Still, he found himself feeling quite aggrieved and unable to quiet his mind. If he ever saw Amin or any of his men again, they would regret it. <br/>
     Finally, he folded her into his arms and allowed himself to sleep. He did not know if she would still love him when she woke up or if she would still shout and call him a murderer, so he kissed her neck and held her tightly while he could.<br/>
     They slept through the night and into the next afternoon without stirring. There were hesitant knocks at the door as someone attempted to bring them food or cups of chai, but no sound could pull them out of their deep slumber. Erik awoke with his head on her chest just as the sun was beginning to set on the next day. Her skin was cold and damp. <br/>
     He shook her. She murmured, but did not open her eyes. She began shivering uncontrollably, clenching her fists in pain. He panicked. Though his own blood was too cold for it, he knew this malady well. He swiftly found his mask, still dirty and wet with sweat from the day before. He unlocked and opened the door and called out. <br/>
     It was time to confess that he did not know how to care for his own wife.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading this far - they finally made it to Lahore! Things are going to get weird from here on. Comments and feedback are deeply appreciated.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. P. falciparum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Red Death stalks Christine from her sick bed.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A warning that this entire chapter is an ambiguous sexual situation with consent issues.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  Although no one would have understood it at the time, Christine’s body was held hostage by an organism harnessing her very blood cells as broodmares for its progeny. As merozoite spawn burst forth into her bloodstream, paroxysms of fever and pain coursed through her body. And while the new organisms gestated in cycles of life and death inside her, her fevers broke and cold sweat poured out of her. And then it started anew with bone-rattling chills.<br/>     In febrile delirium, her eyes opened just enough for her vision to fill with blood. The gold painted horses on the ceiling began to gallop. The Red Room was both very cramped and vast enough to hold the specter of everyone she had ever known, crowding around the bed in a grim and listless procession. It was led by her father, accompanied by the vague image of her mother, and a deathly pale Maman Valerius. They were followed by Buquet, his neck wrapped in red lines of blood, and the unfortunate thief, carrying his own purple head at his side. The Comte was there, all bloated and wet and the Vicomte as young and beautiful as ever, holding him by the arm. There were all the potential cadavers of the Opera, dressed in their finery, not knowing why they were there because the Opera had not been blown up and they were not really dead. <br/>     The Red Death broke away from this procession and approached her, his Death’s head grinning widely. But he is not so ugly, Christine thought. In fact, she found the skull quite handsome. The skull, the essence of human beauty, giving shape and shadow to the visage that might have once stretched over it. She found his high cheekbones and determined jaw bone most alluring. What need is there for a nose of ephemeral cartilage that will only rot away? Better to love a perfect face, an eternal face, the part of the face that will never rot away. The thin and sickly skin was but an unnecessary mask over his Death’s head and she wished it would all burn away and leave only the bone. She wanted to scratch his skin away. The bone she would kiss with eyes open. <br/>     The Red Death climbed onto the bed, crouching like a cat, his red silk robes splayed out before him. She was terrified and recoiled into the bedding but he grabbed her bare legs and pulled her towards him. She might have screamed but his embrace was at once familiar and exciting. Maybe she would be his bride after all, if only he would deliver her from this pain. He ran his hands over her fervid body, which now ached to meet every caress. He stood up onto his knees over her and took it out. He showed it to her, asking her to touch it, demanding that she worship it. The dying are vulnerable, but Death is puffed up with power and Christine was overwhelmed with desire for it. She reached out and took him into her hands. He thrust himself into her hands while towering over her. <br/>“Have you come to take me away?” she asked. “Have you come to deliver me from this earthly pain?” He continued to thrust as he held up his hand and closed his fist tightly. He commanded her blood cells ejaculate a new generation of merozoite into her blood. Her cells burst and died in climax. She dropped him from her hands and fell back on the bed writhing. No, he was not there for deliverance; he held the reins of her pain.<br/>     He irreverently pulled her legs open and buried his head into her sex. The red silk that covered his shoulders was cool and slick against the backs of her thighs. She ran her bare feet over his back and pressed his skull further into her with her fingertips.<br/>     The procession of ghosts continued to oscillate around her. The horses reared off the ceiling. The shadows in the room waxed and waned, the sun set and rose again. And still he tried to ravage her.<br/>He moaned, “My Eurydice, <em>fuck me</em>, my Isolde, my Juliette, my Marguerite, my Sita, my Lakmé, <em>fuck me!</em>”<br/>“<em>No, no, no!</em> I don’t want to be Eurydice. I don’t want to be any of them. I want to live!” she yelled. “Je veux vivre!”<br/>“<em>Fuck me!</em>” he growled, as if he needed her permission.<br/>“Not now,” she said, pushing his head away, her fingers slipping into his eye sockets and nasal cavities. “I want to stay here. Let me go!” <br/>     He tried to put it in her mouth, to make her swallow his bitter seed of death. But the doctor had finally arrived and instead she swallowed the bitter cure of quinine. The Red Death conceded defeat and slipped out of the room. He was so handsome, she almost hated to see him leave. He would come back for her some other day, he assured her. </p><p>     When Christine opened her eyes, the room was still red, but the ghosts had taken their leave, the horses stood still in their places on the ceiling. Her chemise was soaked through with sweat. At her bedside sat a girl, maybe just a few years younger than herself, wearing a mint green scarf and a long dark braid down her back. <br/>“Where am I?” she asked, looking all around her. The girl smiled gently and touched her hand.<br/>“You are safe,” she said. “Your fever has broken at last.”<br/>“How did I get here?”<br/>“The man in the mask brought you here.”<br/>“You mean my husband?” <br/>“The man in the mask is your husband?” the girl’s eyes grew wide.<br/>“Where is he?”<br/>“He is with Baba, but he will be back soon,” the girl reassured her.<br/>“Are we speaking French?” Christine asked, as if in a dream. The girl smiled brightly.<br/>“Yes, Madame. I study French, so my family asked me to come watch after you.”<br/>“Who is Baba?”<br/>“Baba is my grandfather. This is Baba’s house. Do not worry Madame, we will take good care of you here. Please rest.”<br/>“I want to see my husband.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Mirza and Sahiban</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sanaa helps Christine through her recovery and tells her the Punjabi tragedy of Mirza and Sahiban.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>   Christine slept for several more days in the Red Room. Each time she opened her eyes, Sanaa was at her side, and each time she asked, she was told her husband was with Baba. Finally, she was told that he had gone deer hunting with Baba’s sons and would be gone for several more days. Sanaa promised her that he had been at her bedside throughout her fever, "He sang so sweetly to you!" But when the doctor had confirmed her recovery was near, Baba had called for a large hunting party to go out into the countryside and bring back a stag. Much to Sanaa’s confoundment, Christine burst into tears.<br/>
     From the moment she had agreed to marry him, they had not been apart more than a few hours at a time. While they traveled, she could not so much as bathe herself outside his line of sight. She felt the constant weight of his eyes upon her. While there had been many times when she wanted nothing more than a moment or an entire bed to herself, she had grown so accustomed to his presence that his sudden absence was acutely painful to her. He had become the center around which she measured everything else. Now he had gone away, leaving her in a strange place, in the care of strangers. She was lost without him. <br/>
     Her memories of the last night on the highway surfaced slowly. She cringed with shame as she remembered throwing his music into the fire. How could she have done it? Why had she done it? And then the vision of the thief’s swollen, purple head asserted itself and she felt sick. It had been so easy for Erik, so extravagantly disgusting, his Death’s head contorted with pleasure and determination to see it through to the end and then beyond. It was inhuman. And yet, she would give anything for him to return and hold her in his bloody hands again. <br/>
     Sanaa assured her that the men would be back in a few days. Christine worried about him in a way she never had before. She could not imagine him hunting, despite that she knew he could handle a weapon. She had seen his vulnerabilities so clearly on that last, bright day on the road. How his skin burned, his eyes blinded, the horror reflected back at him from passersby. Poor Erik! How could he survive out in the countryside with strangers? But then, maybe they weren’t strangers?<br/>
“Sanaa? How does your Baba know my husband?”<br/>
“I meant to ask you the same. I do not know. I only know that they have talked about a masked man for many years in this house - and always with much respect,” she was sure to add.<br/>
“He has been here before?”<br/>
“I believe so. Many years ago, when my father was young. Didn’t your husband tell you anything before you arrived?” </p><p>     When Christine was well enough to leave the Red Room, Sanaa took her to have a long, hot bath downstairs. She helped her wash and perfume her hair, and presented her with a forest green shalwar kameez and matching, embroidered dupatta. “Your husband left some money and instructions for us to order clothes made for you. If you like this, you can have one in every color.” Christine passed her hands over the soft cotton and beautiful needlework of the blouse and scarf. Sanaa helped her dress, showing her how to wear the dupatta gracefully over her shoulders or hair. <br/>
     Sanaa held her hand as she led Christine through the labyrinthine hallways, introducing her to the women who had fretted about her recovery, preparing chai and soup and burning her travel clothes, as her husband had ordered. They passed through the courtyard where Sanaa’s aunties were cooking roti and plucking chickens. They all wanted to know how this lovely young woman had come to marry the man who had haunted their nightmares as children. They hoped Sanaa would get all the answers. </p><p>“I want to see Mahtab,” Christine said. Sanaa grabbed a few pears and took her behind the house where the horse was kept in a small stall. Erik had taken his nameless horse with him.<br/>
“Why do you call her Mahtab?” <br/>
“One of the men traveling with us named her.”<br/>
“And you rode this horse from Constantinople all the way to Lahore?”<br/>
“I did,” Christine said proudly, rubbing Mahtab’s nose and offering her a pear. “She is a very strong horse.”<br/>
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to take a train?” Christine gave a pained laugh. It did not seem Erik’s intent to make anything easy for her. </p><p>     Lastly, Sanaa brought Christine to Baba’s White Room on the first floor, where he sat observing the courtyard activities on a mound of pillows. He gave an amused smile as they walked in, heads lowered, dupattas raised.<br/>
“Look Baba, the French woman is feeling much better. We’ve taken such good care of her, haven’t we?” Sanaa said with a satisfied smile. <br/>
“Don’t you want to say anything to Baba, Christine? I will interpret for you.” Christine nodded.<br/>
“I would like to tell him that I am very grateful for his hospitality to a stranger.”<br/>
“But you are not a stranger,” the old man said. “I knew your husband when he was just a young man. I always knew he would come back - he told us he would. Of course, we did not expect that he would bring a wife,” he laughed. Sanaa laughed too, though softly, reluctantly. <br/>
     Then the old man said a few other things that Sanaa did not want to repeat. But he insisted. “We taught your husband many skills here. And we hear that he went on to use those skills in other kingdoms, far from here. Now he is a wealthy man and he has come to show us his new wife...” Here Sanaa stopped again. She kept her head lowered, but countered her grandfather in a way that displeased him. His voice grew rough and demanding. Sanaa finally conceded, her discomfort visible. “He says he does not really believe a beautiful woman such as yourself would have married such an - such an ugly man.”<br/>
     Christine remained silent. She could not meet his eyes, which searched her face shamelessly for the truth. <br/>
“Please tell him I love my husband very much,” she said. He burst into obscene laughter. She wanted to flee the room, but decided it might be best to show no emotion - he so clearly wanted to make her cry. “Please, also tell him that his granddaughter is lovely and speaks perfect French and he should be very proud of her.” </p><p>     Sanaa helped Christine into the bed in the Red Room. She was still fatigued and weak. <br/>
“You have been so gracious to me, Sanaa,” Christine whispered as she laid her head on the red pillow. “I should be so lonely if not for you and your lovely smile and your perfect French. Did you know I am not even really French? I was born in Sweden. But I haven’t been there in a long time.”<br/>
“Madame, you seem very sad. I am so sorry about what Baba said. He can be very cruel. But he can be good too! It was Baba that made sure only the best doctor came to treat you. You know Madame, you were very sick. You almost died.” <br/>
Christine’s eyes brimmed with tears. <br/>
“What can I do to ease your heart?”<br/>
“I miss him. I wish he hadn’t gone away.”<br/>
“Madame - ” Sanaa reached out and took Christine’s hands in her own.<br/>
“Please call me Christine. We are friends, aren’t we?”<br/>
“Yes, of course! Christine, it is very likely he did not want to go. When Baba demands something, no one can refuse him. For whatever reason, he wanted the men to have a stag hunt and your husband was made to go.”<br/>
“You say he sang to me - how did you know that? Did you hear him?”<br/>
“My room is just next door. I could hear him through that wall there. He sang to you night and day while you were sick with fever. I could tell, just by his voice, that he loves you very much.”<br/>
“Yes, his voice is so beautiful.”<br/>
“In truth, it made me weep. I sat by the wall and wept, it was so beautiful. Can I ask, Christine, what is the story of your love?” Christine did not know how to answer. Where did the story begin? When had her fear turned into love and back into fear again? <br/>
“He was my music teacher. I used to sing at the Opera in Paris.”<br/>
“I didn’t know that you sing too! You must sing for us - when you are feeling better, of course.”<br/>
“Yes, when I feel better. Sanaa, could I ask you to tell me a story tonight? It helps me to sleep.”<br/>
“Of course! Let me think of a nice one. Oh yes, I will tell you the story of Mirza and Sahiban. It is one of our most famous love stories. But be patient with me, as I have never told this story in French. I must warn you, it is a very sad story.” Sanaa began to stroke Christine’s hair in a motherly way, even though she was the younger of the two. Christine closed her eyes and exhaled in relief and peace. Truly, she would have gone mad if not for Sanaa.<br/>
“Do not worry. I have heard many sad stories in my life. The Opera is full of them. I like good stories, even when they are sad.”</p><p>     <em>There was once a girl named Sahiban and a boy named Mirza who learned their letters together in the same school and fell in love before they could know the consequences of such things. Sahiban’s family did not approve of Mirza and arranged for her to marry another man, Tahar Khan. On the day before her wedding, Sahiban wistfully thinks of her Mirza and sends him a message, “Come and decorate your Sahiban’s hands with henna.” Upon receiving her message, Mirza grabs his bow and quiverful of arrows, leaps onto his mare, Bakki. He rides as fast as he can to steal Sahiban away. He pulls her onto Bakki, to ride behind him and they ride all night with the plan to marry the next day, far, far from her family - especially her four brothers. </em><br/>
<em>     In the morning, feeling confident and invincible, Mirza stops Bakki under a tree, so that they might rest in the shade. Sahiban protests - she is fearful of her brothers and knows they will not stop until they find her. Mirza is unbothered, he says, “Even the Angels fear my Bakki, who can sink into hell and touch the clouds of heaven!” He is too arrogant. He falls asleep with his head in Sahiban’s lap, the way only a husband should. But she does not sleep. She knows that when her brothers arrive Mirza will kill them with his arrows, for he is the better hunter. But she believes that she can make peace with her brothers; there need not be any bloodshed. So she breaks all of his arrows while he is sleeping. Then he will not be able to kill her brothers. </em><br/>
<em>     When her brothers finally do arrive and find them sleeping arm in arm beneath the tree and they are enraged. They will not listen to Sahiban’s pleas for peace. Mirza goes to lift his bow and finds not one unbroken arrow, not one! Sahiban’s brothers fall upon him with their swords. And then they turn to her and strangle her with her own silk dupatta. </em><br/>
<em>     Despite that they were never married, their families recognized that they loved each other deeply and they are buried side by side. Even today young couples visit their tomb to ask for blessings on their love.</em></p><p>     Christine’s eyes were still closed and Sanaa was unsure if she was still listening or had already fallen asleep. Finally she whispered,“They were real people? They are buried together somewhere? It isn’t just a story?” <br/>
“They were real,” Sanaa assured her. “There really is a tomb where lovers go for help. I hope it wasn’t too sad for you.”<br/>
“At the very least, I don’t have any brothers and I have already been told that no one is looking for me,” Christine said sleepily. It was a strange thing to have said and Sanaa made note of it. <br/>
“When you are feeling better, I will take you out to see my city. I could even invite my French teacher. You may enjoy meeting her, she is very sweet, just like you.”<br/>
“That would be lovely,” Christine whispered just before falling asleep. “But why do they always have to die?”</p><p> </p><p>___________________________________</p><p>There are many songs about Mirza and Sahiban. I wanted to share this video because it illustrates the story well. If anyone knows of more classic songs about this love story, I would love suggestions.</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1g_UgTifo&lt;br%20/&gt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1g_UgTifo&lt;br /&gt;</a>
</p><p>Links and notes on all the music that inspired and informed this story can be found in Chapter 24.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And as always, comments are so deeply appreciated! Thank you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Palace of Mirrors: Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Christine explores Lahore with Sanaa while anxiously awaiting Erik's return.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     When Christine was finally well enough to leave the house, Sanaa arranged for a tour of the Sheesh Mahal with her French teacher, Mme. Fournier. Sanaa lent Christine a light blue shalwar kameez and white dupatta - after the tour they would fetch the clothing Sanaa had ordered made for Christine from a well known tailor. Much to Sanaa’s annoyance, they were accompanied by her younger cousin, Mahiwal, at the insistence of the family. For protection, they said.<br/>     The carriage dropped them off before the Alamgiri Gate, where Mme. Fournier waited for them. The sight of the French woman in her bright white corseted dress and matching lace parasol unsettled Christine. She had the sensation that she was looking at her own reflection, her double, her past self. Except that her past self would never have traveled so far from the stage.<br/>“Sanaa, what does Mme. Fournier’s husband do? Why do they live here in Lahore?”<br/>“He works for the French government. I don’t really remember what he does. Something very boring in an office.”<br/>“Sanaa,” Christine whispered, just before entering Mme. Fournier’s earshot, “I cannot tell her my real name.”<br/>“Oh, friend!”<br/>     Mme. Fournier was as lovely as Sanaa had said, taking Christine’s hands and brushing les bises against her cheeks as if they were old friends. Christine introduced herself as Cécile Garnier and they had a lovely morning together admiring Lahore’s historic crown jewel of a palace. Sanaa was especially proud to serve as interpreter for the official guide, who only spoke Punjabi, Urdu, and English, but no French. Mahiwal sulked behind the group, bored and just as annoyed with his family as his cousin.<br/>“I asked Sanaa once, why did you choose to learn French instead of English? And she told me she would never learn English - that is how much she hates the British!” Mme. Fournier laughed. “But actually I think it was her father who encouraged her choice. He speaks a little French himself. Just imagine my surprise, Cécile, when my Sanaa wrote to me to cancel our lesson because an actual French woman had arrived at her doorstep!” Mme. Fournier giggled mordantly. “She told me you have been unwell, though. Have you fully recovered, my dear? You look beautiful, your cheeks have color. Sanaa’s clothing suits you.”<br/>“Yes, I am fully recovered now, thank you. Sanaa took wonderful care of me.”<br/>     Sanaa reveled in interpreting the story of Shah Jahan’s construction of the Sheesh Mahal for his great love, Mumtaz Mahal. “The story goes that the lovely Mumtaz had a dream that she was floating, plucking stars out of the sky, and so her husband had this palace built in her honor.” The palace walls were inlaid with mirrored tiles and cut mirror and mirrors within mirrors so that at night the light of a simple candle could illuminate whole rooms and cause crystal stars to appear out of the ceilings. An entire palace built around a simple dream. <br/>     Christine caught her own eyes in tiny pieces of mirror embedded in the walls. Her own eyes one thousand times reflected back to her. Each eye a different possibility, a different story, a different eternity. What might Erik build for me, if only I asked it of him? If only my dreams were so serene? <br/>     “<em>Garnier, Garnier</em>,” Mme. Fournier repeated on her lips. “Did you know that my husband receives several Paris papers at his office? They are always six months late, but I still devour them. Any news from Paris is of interest, even if it is outdated. And I read in the Epoque, just last week, though it happened months ago, a very strange story about the Palais Garnier,” she began.<br/>“Oh?” Christine asked with as little emotion as possible. Stupid Erik! Could he not have thought of a more clever fake name for her?<br/>“Yes. A Swedish soprano was abducted from the stage right in the middle of her performance. La Juive, I believe. Or maybe it was Faust? Anyway, they never found her.” Sanaa looked stricken. Christine’s hands went cold.<br/>“How strange!” Christine gasped. “And what happened in the end?”<br/>“Well, apparently the Opera house had been plagued by all kinds of accidents for some time. The owners would not make an official statement though. I don’t know how it resolves - I have to wait until the next paper arrives.”<br/>“What was the soprano’s name?” Christine asked, feeling outside of herself.<br/>“Something very Scandanavian. But I don’t really remember. Your name just made me think of it. Garnier.” <br/>     Christine knew then that they could never return to Paris. If news of her abduction had reached this far across the world, she could never show her face there again. Not if she wished to remain at his side. Where could she ever be Christine again, as long as she was his wife? <br/>    <br/>     Sanaa lingered over a certain mosaic just long enough for Mme. Fournier to take Christine’s arm and speak to her in confidence. <br/>“Mme. Garnier, I am curious as to how you came to know my dear Sanaa. I understand you are staying in her family’s home?” she whispered.<br/>“Yes, my husband is an acquaintance of her grandfather’s. They have been gracious hosts to us. ”<br/>“You are aware that Sanaa’s grandfather is a prominent criminal in this city?” Mme. Fournier’s cheerfulness had dissipated and she spoke quite gravely. Again Christine’s hands went cold.<br/>“I was not aware.”<br/>“You say your husband is an acquaintance of Sanaa’s Baba?” Stupid Christine! How could she have revealed so much? “What does your husband do?”<br/>“He is a musician.”<br/>“He plays music?”<br/>“He is a musician. He - he has performed for Baba. I am sure there is no truth to whatever it is that you have heard about Sanaa’s family. They have been lovely to me.”<br/>“Oh, and Sanaa is the loveliest of them all. I adore her, she has been the perfect student. It doesn’t change the fact that they are well known criminals. All of them.” Sanaa was still at a distance, admiring something sparkling against the wall. <br/>“What do they do?” Christine asked tentatively.<br/>“Anything you could imagine. Did you see those young boys gathered on the corner at the entrance gate? Just waiting to pick your pockets? They all work for him. All of them. But his roots reach deeper than just petty thievery. He may seem like a kindly old man, but he is very, very dangerous. You must be very careful while you are living in that house.” Mme. Fournier pressed her calling card into Christine’s cold hands. “If you should ever find yourself in danger, please call on me, or send a message to my home. Please, Cécile, be very careful.” <br/>     Christine had no intention of ever calling on Mme. Fournier.<br/>     They said goodbye at the Alamgiri Gate. When they saw her ride away in her elegant carriage, Sanaa turned to Christine with a pained expression.<br/>“Christine, was it you that she was talking about? Are you the soprano taken from the Opera house? This - this Palais Garnier?”<br/>“It is me,” she said softly. “Please don’t make me tell you that story.”<br/>“Never. You never have to tell me, Christine. I am so sorry. I thought you would like to meet her, just to meet someone from your own country, so far away from home. But I should have known better.”<br/>“You could not have known."<br/>“My family has taught me better than this. If your husband is a friend of Baba’s, then of course you cannot tell her your real name. I should have known.”</p><p>     Their own carriage picked them up and took them south through the winding and narrow streets of Old Lahore, crowded overhead with many jharokha windows. Behind these latticed windows stood the eyes of many women, watching the comings and goings of the world below. They could see out, but no one could see in.<br/>     The carriage dropped them on the northern periphery of the Anarkali Bazaar. Sanaa led them through the endless river of merchant stalls until she found her family’s preferred tailor. He had prepared cotton shalwar kameez for Christine in five colors: red, blue, purple, white, and black, and a silk set in rose. Each was embellished with embroidery and beading, each matched with a complimenting dupatta. Sanaa sent Mahiwal to purchase lassi for them all, while they sat and admired the tailor’s work. <br/>“Do you think they will please your husband?”<br/>“I know they will,” Christine smiled.<br/>“What is his real name?”<br/>“Erik,” she said, his name like honey in her mouth. <br/>“I heard this morning that they may return this evening,” Sanaa said, fingering the silver beads of the rose blouse. “But I am not sure.”<br/>     Suddenly, Christine felt very happy. Lahore was a beautiful city, Sanaa a blessing. She was even happy Mahiwal was there, despite his unpleasant demeanor. She sat in the market, a bundle of pretty new clothes in one hand, a mango lassi in the other. And perhaps Erik would be home by tonight. If they could never return to Paris, perhaps they could make a home in Punjab? <br/>     They began to make their way back to the street, so that the carriage could find them again. As they pushed through a crush of people, Christine failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she did. A shadow which finally gathered the courage to call out to her, “Madame!”<br/>     All three turned to look back into the sea of faces. She did not see him until he was nearly upon her, respectfully resisting the urge to reach out for her hand.<br/>“Farhad!” she exclaimed. She too resisted the urge to take his hands in hers, although in the time she had known him they had never once touched. “But what are you doing here? I would have thought you had left Lahore weeks ago.”<br/>“That’s what we thought too. But Medhi became very sick almost as soon as we arrived and he has only now recovered, God be praised. I cannot believe that I would see you here.” <br/>     Sanaa and Mahiwal looked on, bewildered. Sanaa, whose Farsi was weak but good enough to detect the intimacy between the two, followed their words as closely as she could. Mahiwal, who understood no Farsi, could still detect this intimacy and felt that finally his presence had a purpose. He moved closer to Christine with the intention of intervening should this Persian man show any disrespect for his family’s houseguest. <br/>“Madame, forgive us,” Farhad said softly, solemnly. “We should never have left you.”<br/>“It is forgiven, Farhad. Let us forget that night,” she said, lowering her eyes.<br/>“We left you in danger and I can never forgive myself. Thank God you are alive.” Christine looked around her. It was not a conversation she wanted to have at any time, but here in the middle of the market, it seemed especially inopportune. <br/>“Please, Farhad. You did nothing wrong,” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I am never in danger with him. He would never hurt me.”<br/>“Madame, how? How can a soul as - forgive me - beautiful as yours, be married to such a - such a -” <br/>“Do not say it -"<br/>“- a demon.”<br/>     Her eyes filled with tears. Mahiwal stepped between them and Sanaa took her hand.<br/>“Christine, Christine come. Who is this man who is making you cry?”<br/>“Leave me Farhad. Better that you should forget me. But know that you did nothing wrong. I am safe with him.” Sanaa began to pull her away. Mahiwal, who did not know how to berate the man in his own language, let out a string of Punjabi curses and threats. As young as Mahiwal was, the threats were not at all empty, for what Farhad failed to see were the many shadows which followed him like his own shadow, which stopped when he stopped, which started again when he did. Christine could hear his whisper behind her: <em>Light of my eyes</em>.</p><p>     In the late afternoon, Christine and Sanaa hid themselves away in the Green Room. Sanaa did not ask Christine any more about the Opera, she did not even ask who was the man in the market who had made her cry. She encouraged Christine to change into one of her new outfits, suggesting the silk rose. “You will look so pretty for him!” They took chai and talked about all manner of sickly sweet things.<br/>     Christine spent several hours leaning out of Sanaa’s window, watching the family swirl about in domestic busyness, cooking, cleaning, herding children from one room to another. Could they really be a family of criminals, as Mme. Fournier had said? They seemed like a perfectly normal family.<br/>     The last hours of the sun splayed a brilliant, golden light across the courtyard. Every moment was pregnant with the possibility of being the moment just before the moment he returned. Every moment that passed by was mourned for not being that moment at all.</p><p>     It was almost dark when the men arrived on their horses. They were loud and brash; they not only smelled of but <em>sounded</em> of alcohol. She saw them arrive from the balcony of the Green Room. She searched for him, among the other men dismounting their horses, unpacking their supplies, but the shadows were too long to see well. She nearly flew down the three flights of stairs to the courtyard. She began to weep with relief even before she found him. She waded through men and sweating horses and then there, there was her Erik, tall and masked, handsomely dressed in local hunting clothes. <br/>“My angel, you have come back!” she cried, rushing up to embrace him, her fingertips electric with expectation. He allowed her to embrace his neck for but a moment before pulling her arms away.<br/>“Calm, my love,” he laughed. “You must behave yourself in front of our hosts.” She became aware that the others were watching them. Her hands burned to touch him, her body ached to be pressed against him, but he grew stiff and pulled away. “You look much recovered. I am happy to see it,” he said, handing his horse off to a young boy. He looked from side to side, then took her arm and steered her towards a stone bench in a dark corner of the crowded courtyard. “But what is this blouse? You look beautiful, my Punjabi Princess.” He fingered her emerald earrings.<br/>“Erik, how I have missed you!” She began to weep openly.<br/>“You must really love me then. How things have changed,” he gently lifted her chin to face him. “Hush, we have much to talk about, but not here. Do not cry anymore when I tell you, you are to sleep in Sanaa’s room tonight.”<br/>“Why?” she gasped<br/>“If you haven’t noticed it yet, Baba rules over every detail of this household, including where we are to sleep. He has dictated that you are to sleep in the Green Room with Sanaa, for now.” <br/>     Her tears continued to flow. <br/>“All those other little girls that stay there must move to the Blue Room. Stop crying, please stop. You know I do not like it when you cry. You really did miss me? You really do love me then?”<br/>“It’s unbearable how much I love you!” she cried. He sat quietly with her. To her torment he did not let her touch him. He gently took her hand in his, for this he deemed modest enough. <br/>“Did you know that this house is over two hundred years old?” he asked, looking around, assessing who might be observing them, listening to them.“This is not Baba’s ancestral home, for he has none. But when he became a wealthy man he purchased this haveli for his growing family, and he rules over it like his own little kingdom.” He rubbed his thumb in small circles on the inside of her palm. “A long time ago, your Erik came to live here, to learn from Baba all that could be taught to a growing monster like myself. And I worked for him. Oh yes, in this old house I built all the trap doors I could fit. Some at Baba’s request, others for my own amusement.” He lowered his voice into a soft purr. “There is a door in the wall between the Green Room and the Red Room. I will tell you how to open it. It must be you that comes to me, for if I were caught trying to enter the Green Room, which is for the young unmarried women of the house, it would cause a strain on my relations here.”<br/>“But I am not an unmarried woman,” Christine protested.<br/>“No, you are not,” he agreed, pressing his thumb into her palm, knowingly. “But we must do as the old man says.” <br/>     Christine shook her head in shock. Erik was his own man, guided by no one but himself. Why would he accept these terms? “You must come into the Red Room tonight, when Sanaa has fallen asleep,” he leaned forward so that she could smell the alcohol on him. “Then I can hold you again at last.”<br/>“Why must we stay here? Why couldn’t we move into a hotel? This makes no sense!”<br/>“My dear child, because this, this house is the very reason we have traveled so far.”<br/>     Erik called a man over to them. <br/>“This is Sanaa’s father, Latif.” he told her. The man bowed politely to Christine and she respectfully nodded her head in return. <br/>“Please tell him that Sanaa has been my dearest friend here. You have her to thank for my recovery.” Erik relayed her words and Sanaa’s father nodded again and took his leave. <br/>“Now, my love, you must move into the Green Room and I must go and meet with Latif.”<br/>“No, don’t leave me again,” she refused to release his hand.<br/>“Wait until Sanaa is asleep. Then you must come to me. It must be <em>you</em> that comes to <em>me</em>.” <br/>     Erik looked across the courtyard, into the White Room, where Baba’s eyes sparkled with malice in the darkness.<br/>     It wasn’t until later in the night that Christine thought of it. Among all the supplies and parcels the men had unloaded from their horses, she had not seen any stag. Not even a pair of antlers.</p><p>     Christine waited, waited, waited for her friend to stop talking, to close her eyes, to begin to breathe like a sleeping person. She feared her heartbeat was so loud it would keep Sanaa awake, that Sanaa could somehow perceive the anxious energy that coursed through her veins. She lay stiffly in her bed, holding her breath, her sex throbbing, her fingers restless.<br/>     At last, Sanaa’s breath settled into the tranquil rhythm of dreamland. Christine rose and walked to the corner of the room nearest the window. She stood in the darkness, allowing her eyes time to adjust. The outlines of the silver elephants on the wall became clearer. The moonlight filled the dark spaces in her vision. She ran her hands along the wooden panels that constituted the hollow wall. She pressed into the corner, just as he had instructed her to do. Finally, she felt a slight snap in the wood and a small door sprang open out of the wall. She then looked for the latch to open the side of the wall facing the Red Room. Except that in the space between the two wooden panels she felt a draft. She looked down at the narrow floorspace and saw only a cavernous hole. As her eyes adjusted further, she saw what appeared to be steps. It was a miniature staircase, built in the hollow space inside the wall, that led down, down, down into the blackness of the haveli’s core. <br/>     He had heard her rustling and was now standing on his side of the trap door, waiting impatiently for her to open it. His body ached for her. He had been touched at the reception she had given him; dressed so beautifully, so tearful. Could it be that she had truly missed her Erik? Did she really love him as much as that? He could almost feel her in his arms already. She was there, just on the other side, he could hear her breathing. But why did it take her so long?<br/>“Christine?”<br/>     She could move no further. Her heart pounded out of her chest; there was a screaming in her ears. There on the inside of the trap door, illuminated by the moonlight, the silver painted outlines of little creatures emerged. Slowly they revealed themselves to her: rows of scorpions, rows of grasshoppers. <br/>“Come, Christine," he scratched at the wood between them. "My angel, come to me!”<br/>     In terror she shut the door. Fear brought her trembling to her knees.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I tried to investigate whether the Sheesh Mahal would really have been open to sightseeing in the 1880's and after being unable to confirm one way or another I decided I still wanted Christine to go there with Sanaa. So, sorry if it's not historically feasible for them to be there. It seems like an incredible place and if I'm ever lucky enough to actually travel to Lahore it would be the first place I would go. Please leave a comment or review! I have cherished each one - feedback from readers makes writing this story an incredible experience. Thanks to you all!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. A Scorpion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Baba makes a cruel demand.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>What a weekend, stay safe everyone.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     There was once a large haveli inhabited by a family ruled over by a criminal patriarch. His control over his four sons and their wives and children was so complete he determined where they slept, what they ate, what they wore. It was a house of many rooms, including seven formal bedrooms, each decorated in a different color: a blue room for the children, a green room for the young women, a red, purple, and rose room for married couples, a white room for the elder. And then there was a room of black and mirror, unknown to anyone in the family, built underneath the house, rotting its very core.</p><p>      Baba called them to the White Room in the morning. The couple arrived separately from their respective rooms and sat before him, perched up on his mound of white pillows, pontificating his intentions for the couple. The space between them filled with longing, but they could not touch. <br/>“What does he say? What does he say? You must tell me!” she whispered as the two men conversed without pause for some time. Finally, Erik turned to her and said, “He wishes for us to be married.”<br/>    She turned to face Baba and said, “Tell him, we have already been married, by a priest of our own god.”<br/>“He knows. What he really wants is to give us a wedding.”<br/>“No, no, no, we don’t need a wedding - we are already married!”<br/>“He knows this Christine.”<br/>“It is a farce. He means to make fun of us,” she said.<br/>“Yes, you are beginning to understand,” Erik said knowingly.<br/>     Baba interrupted. He did not like being left out of their conversations so he sent for Sanaa. She stood at his side, to interpret for him, and not for Christine. <br/>He spoke to Erik, “Your bride is unhappy with our offer to lavish her with a wedding?”<br/>“She is unhappy because she does not yet understand the honor you wish to bestow upon her.”<br/>“I see. Because I would think that whatever sad wedding you had in France, without family or friends, in some hovel of a church, with a blind priest no doubt, would have left her unsatisfied. Let us give her what you could not. Let us celebrate her marriage to a monster in the proper way.” <br/>     Sanaa sucked in her breath sharply. Her grandfather’s rancor was only now becoming grossly apparent.<br/>“You are too generous. She will surely be grateful,” Erik bowed slightly. “I expect it will be a full ceremony, and you will invite an imam to come and say prayers over us - if you can find one willing to cross the threshold of your impious house? If we are to have a wedding, then let it be real, with the blessings of your god.”<br/>“I have no god, as you well know.”<br/>“And I expect a feast and dancing and for the house to be covered in flowers, on all three floors.”<br/>“You can pay for the imam, I will pay for the feast.”<br/>“You will pay for my bride’s gown and jewelry.”<br/>“You will pay the musicians and dancers.”<br/>“I accept.”<br/>“And your bride will sing.”<br/>“No, no you cannot expect a bride to sing at her own wedding.”<br/>“But I do expect it. I have been told your wife was a famous singer at the Paris Opera Palace. She will sing for us.” <br/>     Sanaa looked sick.<br/>Baba now spoke directly to Christine, “Our Erik has returned after many years and done what none expected of him - he has bewitched a beautiful woman and brought her back to us so that we can see he has done the impossible and found someone willing to look at his monstrous face for an eternity! It is truly something to celebrate.” Sanaa repeated his words dutifully, but with a faltering and cracking voice. <br/>“He mocks you, Erik!” Christine cried.<br/>“Yes, he does.”<br/>“Let us leave now,” she implored him. She shook her head in shock. She had never known Erik to tolerate humiliation perceived, let alone real. She braced herself for his terrible temper - but it never showed itself. <br/>     She searched her husband’s deep, black eyes and only then did she understand that he was playing a game. A game she was not invited to play, the rules left unexplained. She looked up at Sanaa, who had faithfully repeated the insults the old man flung at her, and who now looked ready to retch all over his pillows. Did Sanaa know the rules?<br/>     Baba leaned back, smiling. As the final word he said, “Your bride will continue to sleep in the Green Room, under the watchful eye of my granddaughter, until your wedding night. We promise to preserve her integrity for you."<br/>“My wife’s integrity needs no preservation!” <br/>     Baba let out his coarse laugh.<br/>     Christine tugged Erik’s sleeve. “What did he say? Tell me, please tell me!”</p><p>    They did not see each other the rest of the day, but that evening, when Sanaa was finally immersed in her own dreams, Christine rose from her bed. She opened the first trap door and was confronted again with the childish yet menacing paintings of scorpions and grasshoppers. But her desire outweighed her fear. She crawled over the dark hole of the staircase and crossed through to the Red Room. There he stood, waiting for her, his cat eyes burning brightly in his skull.<br/> “My angel, my love, you have come back to me!” He opened his arms to her and she filled them, but he found that she was shivering. “Are you frightened of me again? Do not be afraid of me!”<br/>“It is this house. We are not safe here.”<br/>      He pressed her to him, just as she had longed for since she first opened her eyes in Lahore. His cold fingers moved through her perfumed hair; her hands ran up the black silk of his nightshirt and around his neck. He pulled her face to his mouth.<br/>     In one motion he bent to kiss her, to lift her by the hips, to wind her legs around his narrow waist, to carry her to the bed. He spread her out on the red silk quilt so that he could see her in the lantern light. He kissed the hem of her threadbare chemise as he brought it to her knees. He nested himself between her thighs, enveloped in her warmth.<br/>     Her fingers searched his shirt in vain for an opening onto his skin. His cold body was well hidden from her, even as he entered her core. His silk-wrapped bones pressed themselves into her flesh as he plunged into her. She arched her back to meet him. She ran her feet along his back and the backs of his silken legs and all she could feel on her skin was the cool silk that shrouded him, contrasted with his cold hard cock. She opened her mouth to cry out, but he filled it with an icy thumb against the inside of her cheek. <br/>“You must not sing so loudly, my angel, you will wake the whole house, you must be quiet, oh my angel, you have made me so happy, let me make you happy, let me worship you, let me - let me -” He leaned his head against her shoulder and moved his hands under her, to lift her up into his thrust. Her arms fell behind her head in surrender. <br/>“Tell me you love me, Christine, please, you must love me!”<br/>“I love you, Erik, my angel, my husband, my - my - ay,” She pushed all thoughts of the Red Death, of weighted cords, of blood and rage to the far corners of her mind. She put all her strength and concentration into the love that pounded over her. She let everything else burn away so that there was only love between them. </p><p>     She lay with her head in the curve of his shoulder, her mermaid hair spread across his chest. He smelled like decay, but also myrrh and incense. He mindlessly wound the strands of her hair around his long fingers, lightly pulling against her scalp, feeling her shiver with pleasure. He envied her for her hair. His mangey scalp gave him no access to this pleasure of having one’s hair pulled lightly and mindlessly. His own scalp still suffered from the painful sunburns from the road to Lahore. Of all his many powers, regeneration was not one.<br/>     There was so much to discuss, but the night was only so long and already half eaten with their desire. It was clear the wedding was but a tool for their humiliation, but they had no choice. And, having lurked in the shadows of a number of Punjabi weddings in his youth, a part of him coveted the splendor and spectacle for himself. It was true, he had been unable to give her a happy wedding. If he recalled, she had cried throughout. Even the priest had noticed her reticence. But then, there was that night under the bright stars of Persia when she had fed him a bit of honey-cake and blessed their marriage herself. It was that night he would always remember as their true wedding night. What could this farce mean to them? <br/>     How might he best harness the pageant for his own means, and not Baba’s? <br/>“Why would he want to see us married?”<br/>“He wishes to make a spectacle of me. He will have his guests gawk at the demon-faced fool marrying a lovely thing such as yourself. They will all find it very funny.”<br/>“But why, Erik? Why does he hate you so much? Why would you agree to this?”<br/>“It will not be so bad. The weddings here are spectacular. It will be very fun.”<br/>“It will be a nightmare!”<br/>“Well, that is what Baba does best. It is from this man that I learned the art of making other people miserable. Now you can see how I came to be so talented. But let’s not speak of such things now.”</p><p><br/>“Erik,” she asked into the darkness. “Why was it the scorpion that I was meant to turn?”<br/>“Hush,” he said, shifting under her embrace.<br/>“Anyone given the choice between a scorpion and a grasshopper would choose to pet a grasshopper. A grasshopper hurts no one. Why would you have designed for me to turn the scorpion to get what you truly desired?”<br/>“Did you really not understand? Because a grasshopper <em>hops</em>.”<br/>“Yes, but why the scorpion? To agree to marry  -”<br/>“Enough, do not speak of such things,” he said harshly. <br/>“Why are there little scorpions and grasshoppers painted into the wall?” she asked, lifting her head to look over at the trap door. <br/>“It was madness. I was mad that night.”<br/>“You were mad for more than just that night. It must have taken you some time to design and create those little -.”<br/>“Enough, Christine. We will discuss it no more.”<br/>“But what do the creatures mean? Why are they painted on the wall over there?”<br/>“You have either forgiven my insanity or you have not. I am consumed with love for you and the only reason I contain myself now is your presence here beside me.”<br/>“I simply want to understand -”<br/>“You must forgive me,” he insisted, pinching the fat on her arm. She jerked her arm away, but settled her head back onto his chest. <br/>“Of course. I forgave you a long time ago.”<br/><br/></p><p>     He was still awake when he heard the muezzin’s faint call for morning prayer. The muezzin kept his distance from Baba’s family, for it was not a devout house and no one there ever said their prayers. The gray light of dawn bled in through the red curtains. Christine slept peacefully, the gentle flow of her breath through the silk on his chest was enough to arouse him. His fingers wandered her body and found that she was still wet. <br/>“Écoute, oh Juliette,” he sang sweetly to her, pulling her by the hips. “L’alouette déjà nous annonce le jour!” He slid her open sex over his and sang again, “Already the lark announces the day…” She stirred back to life, first her head lifted from his chest, then her shoulders. He guided himself into her and she sat erect with a deep sigh. He cupped her breasts in his palms and she pushed herself against them. <br/>“Non! non, ce n’est pas le jour,” she sang softly, her voice wavering in pleasure. “No, it isn’t morning, it isn’t the lark - ah!” <br/>“You must go back to the Green Room soon,” he said, placing an icy thumb over her bud. “The sun cannot catch you here.”<br/>“You tell me now, when it is impossible for me to go,” she said, gazing down at him through liquid eyes and rocking her body forward.<br/>“You must go now,” he said, gripping her hips firmly, his thrusts quickening. She leaned forward to kiss his burned and rotting skin. Her kisses fell like rain on his forehead.</p><p>     A chart was drawn, an auspicious day determined. The wedding would be held in three weeks’ time. Clothing was ordered, animals acquired, musicians and dancers hired. <br/>     In the proceeding weeks, Erik remained in his room in the mornings and had <em>business</em> to attend to in the softer suns of the afternoon. Christine noticed that he passed much time with Latif, Sanaa’s father. He did not pass much time with her; separate spheres kept the men and women of the household apart for most of the day. Christine stayed with Sanaa, either helping her aunties cook or playing with the many children or hiding in the Green Room, telling stories and talking about the future. Sanaa would talk about how she never wanted to marry, how she wanted to travel the world, how sorry she was that her grandfather was so cruel.<br/>    Despite the distractions, Christine was full of dread. The women of the household treated her so sweetly she could not imagine that they would be among those laughing at her. But then, if not the family, who was the farce meant to entertain besides Baba? What did he have in store for them?<br/>    Each night, Christine would anxiously lie awake, waiting for Sanaa to drift into sleep. Then she would rise out of her bed and crawl through the door into the Red Room where he would be waiting for her. She would sleep in his arms and slip back into the Green Room before sunrise, and presumably, before Sanaa awoke. <br/>     Of course, Sanaa very quickly figured it all out. She had not known about the trap door in her own room, but now that she did, she was especially curious about the staircase. She wanted to take a lantern and follow it down, down, down. But Christine objected. <br/>“There cannot be anything good down there.”</p><p>     The day before the wedding, Sanaa took Christine downstairs to bathe her in rosewater and jasmine. She brushed her hair out and perfumed it with oils. Then Sanaa led Christine back to the Green Room into which all the women and girls of the house crowded. They sang songs and told vulgar jokes that Sanaa playfully relayed. They were full of wedding night advice, to which Christine could only blush. They fed her with their own hands; dates, cashew, honey, ladu, jailebi. They rubbed turmeric into her skin, they laced her hands and feet with amber hued mehndi. They spent the entire day preparing her body for her husband. <br/>     In the courtyard, garlands of marigolds were hung from the balconies on all three stories of the haveli. Incense wafted through the hallways, as did the screams of slaughtered lambs and chickens.<br/>     In the late afternoon there was a knock at the door. A young boy delivered her bridal saree and jewelry, sent with warm greetings from Baba. The women unraveled the spools of gold-embroidered red silk for her to inspect. Sanaa opened the box of jewelry and held up a heavy gold necklace to Christine’s chest. They held up a mirror for her and began to claspe the jewelry around her neck and wrists and even to change out her small emerald earrings for the large hoops, all embedded with multiple emeralds and rubies.  <br/>“Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir,” she sang softly to herself as they worked to assemble the jewelry. Lastly, Sanaa took out the nath, the bejeweled ring that would be inserted into her right nostril. She held it up to Christine’s nose.<br/>“You don’t have to use this piece. But it is quite beautiful.”<br/>“Would it hurt very much to have it pierced?”<br/>“I wouldn’t know. It is only for married women. We could do it now, if you like.”<br/>     Christine agreed and all the women crowded around her to watch it done. She stifled a scream and then there was clapping and ululation and a small gold stud was placed in her nose to keep the hole open for the next day when the heavier nath would adorn her face.<br/>“No, no, no, this is no longer your face, Christine. This is the daughter of a king, it is no longer you,” she whispered to herself. “Ce n’est plus ton visage, c’est la fille d’un roi, ce n’est plus toi.”<br/>     The sun set on the mehendi. It was time for the women and girls to go back to their own rooms. “Now, now you must not leave this room until tomorrow,” an auntie said, holding Christine’s hand as she stood in the doorway. “He must not see you before the ceremony.” <br/>“It’s true Christine,” Sanaa laughed. “It is very bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. You must stay inside with me until tomorrow.”<br/>     Of course, Christine had no intention of staying inside the little room. As soon as Sanaa was at least pretending to sleep she crawled through to the Red Room and into his arms. <br/>“Do you know what I would like more than anything?” he asked, encircling his long arms around her waist. “I would like to take my wife to the park.”<br/>“We have a lifetime to go to the park. It doesn’t even have to be a Sunday,” she whispered, cupping his jaw in her hand.<br/>“Yes, but I would like to take my wife to the park now. Here, in Lahore. I would like for her to see the Shalimar Gardens.”<br/>“But it is nighttime.”<br/>“My love, I will never be able to take you to the park during the day. Come, let us go now.”<br/>“Now? But they told me it would be bad luck to leave the room before tomorrow. You weren’t even supposed to see me.”<br/>“As we are already married, those silly superstitions are void.”<br/>     He dressed her in a dark cloak and led her to the stable. They rode his nameless horse through the quiet streets of Lahore and right through the gates of the sleeping garden of Shah Jahan. The fountains had been turned off, the guards sleeping. They rode through an earthly nighttime paradise of dark reflecting pools and black flowers. <br/>     Erik tied his horse to a plum tree. They sat and leaned against the tree trunk. He pulled her to him, to rest her back against his chest. He breathed in the perfume of her hair and admired the mehndi that graced her hands, the dark lines faintly visible in the moonlight. He noted the gold stud in her nose and grew excited to see her in her bridal costume.<br/>“Erik, I am afraid for tomorrow.”<br/>“It will be great fun, you’ll see. They think they will laugh at me, but it is I who will laugh at them.”<br/>“You have something planned. Please tell me,” she implored.<br/>“No. I don’t want to worry you with details.”<br/>“I feel like something awful is about to happen. Please tell me what terrible scheme you have designed.”<br/>“You are ruining a perfectly beautiful evening. We have this entire paradise to ourselves. I could have you right here under this tree and no one would bother us.”<br/>“Erik!” He slipped his hand around her throat and kissed her ear. His other entitled hand began to wander, but she took a hold of it and kept it around her waist. <br/>     He slid his head down her chest and into her lap. “No, I should like to rest here a while. It is so nice to be out in the open air with you again.” He inhaled her scent, which mixed with the jasmine that hung in the air. His hands clutched at her legs.<br/>“Erik, not here.”<br/>    She gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind her, replied. But the shadow that had haunted her for so long was here before her, not behind her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In case this story seems too random...</p><p>Why Lahore?<br/>An abandoned set piece from the 1877 opera Le roi de Lahore is mentioned a few times in the novel, usually in reference to the site of Buquet’s hanging, and also near one of Erik’s trap doors. The Persian mentions once that Erik had spent time in India, where he learned the art of strangulation, and his weapon of choice is named several times as the Punjab “lasso” (fil du Pendjab/lacet du Pendjab). The Persian tells us that Erik used this weapon to entertain in Persia, which implies his time in India would have come before his time with the Shah. Lahore is the capital of Punjab, which is now part of Pakistan. </p><p>Why a wedding?<br/>Weddings are a major part of Punjabi culture and it seemed like it would be a shame not to have one in this story. And this story is repeatedly asking what is a wedding and what is a marriage? But also, I find weddings as a tool for humiliation especially horrifying - and this is a horror story at heart. A long time ago I read the story of Anna Ioannovna of Russia, whose own wedding was marred by her uncle, Peter the Great’s parallel Dwarf Wedding and the drinking contest which her groom fatally lost, and who then later held the Ice Palace Wedding to torture someone else. The wedding of Tyrion and Sansa from GoT would be another example, and even the movie Carrie, with prom standing in for a wedding. Weaponizing love is meant to show the depth of Baba’s cruelty.</p><p>Also, was listening to Aunque es Noche by Rosalia non-stop while writing this. It's a beautiful song.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. and a Grasshopper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Christine should have stayed in the Green Room.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dear Readers, this chapter comes with a warning - violence and sex with violence  - and also an apology to those who are thrown off by this change in tone. This wasn’t an easy chapter to write because I care about these characters like you do. It’s probably not the fic you need this very tough week in the U.S. I hope it doesn’t scare you away from the story completely. I promise it will get better by the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>“I am not really wicked...If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>   For days after seeing her in the market, Farhad walked around in a stupor reciting poetry praising her beauty and purity, singing songs to everyone and no one, until Amin could take it no more.<br/>
“Farhad, we are leaving Lahore tomorrow. Get yourself together. This has gone on too long.”<br/>
“We should have saved her!”<br/>
“There was no saving her,” Vahid scolded him. “She made her choice. It’s no business of ours what she does.”<br/>
“I warned you,” Amin said more sternly. “I told you to not even look at her. And now you’ve gone and driven yourself mad. Tell it to your camel. We’re tired of it.”<br/>
     He was possessed by love as if it were a jinn. Eaten away by obsession, Farhad had stopped eating or sleeping. When the day came for Amin and the others to drive their camels and wares out of the city, to return to Persia, Farhad refused to go with them. They pleaded with him, fearful of what might happen if he stayed. But eventually they left him to wander the urban wilderness of Lahore. They could not save him.<br/>
     He grew so thin his skin hung from his bones. He wrote poems for her on the sides of buildings, he sang her praises to the flocks of faces that passed him by each day. <br/>
     He knew where she lived. He had followed her that day in the market, keeping close yet unseen. He now lived in the shadow of the haveli, content that he could protect her from afar. He sometimes caught a cherished glimpse of her through the door to the courtyard, but was otherwise warmed only by his imagined proximity to her. So close, yet he could not touch her. No, no he need never touch her, he would never, never touch her.<br/>
     He heard the singing and clapping of the mehendi. He watched them hang the garlands of marigolds in the courtyard. He heard the screams of slaughtered animals and smelled their roasted flesh as the feast was prepared. And that night, under the veil of darkness, he saw the masked man lead her to the stable, pull her onto his horse behind him, and ride off with her. Farhad had to run to keep up, willing his flying feet to keep silent. His body, hungry and weak, protested each step. He was driven exclusively by his heart.<br/>
     He watched the two lovers from behind a distant wall. He shivered as the masked man lowered his head into her lap. It looked as if he meant to consume her. Farhad could not see their faces, but he could imagine that hers was contorted in fear. If only he could save her perfect soul from this consumption.<br/>
     He approached the couple slowly, quietly rounding the tree and entering their view. His eyes were bloodshot and blurry. <br/>
“<em>Madame</em>,” he called out desperately. Christine flinched at his voice.<br/>
“You!” Erik lept to his feet.<br/>
      Farhad held out his hands to her, “Please come with me. Please, Christine. Let me save you from your demon-groom,” he begged. But before he could begin his melancholy soliloquy, Erik struck his face, lowering him to his knees. Erik straddled the smaller man, his fingers digging into the base of his neck, nearly piercing the skin with his gloved thumbs. Farhad choked and struggled, his nose bloody, his eyes desperately searching for her. He was mad enough to think that if he died while gazing upon her his soul would be at peace.<br/>
“No, no, no!” Christine screamed.  But Erik could not hear her voice; his singular objective was the death of this fool who dared to interfere with the thing most precious to him. <br/>
     She beat her fists on her husband’s back. “Please stop, he is innocent! He has done nothing, can’t you see he’s mad? He’s just a boy!” She began to hit his head, to reach around and stick her fingers through his mask, into his eyes. “His only sin is that he cares for me. Don’t make it a sin to care for me. He doesn’t deserve to die simply because he cares for me!” Erik shrugged her body from him. He turned and struck her cheek with the back of his hand. She fell to the side. <br/>
“You said - you said he would never, never  -” Farhad spit out between gasps for breath.<br/>
      She returned to her feet and wrapped her arms around Erik’s waist, attempting to use her weight to pull him off Farhad’s body. “Erik, my husband, please don’t do this! Love of my life, do not kill this man in my name. You will destroy everything between us, please don’t, please, please, please…” <br/>
Finally, in desperation she said,“Do this and I will strike my head against a wall until I am uglier than you! Until I die! I will die if he dies!” With that Erik rose and grabbed her by the arm.<br/>
“You will not die. Your fate is linked to mine alone. You speak as if you love this boy!”<br/>
“I love only you! Please, I cannot bear to watch you kill someone so innocent. Look at him Erik, he is mad with love, just as you once were. Except that he has not so much as touched the tips of my fingers. Please, for the sake of our love, for the sake of your own soul, please let him go.”<br/>
     Erik’s eyes burned furiously. She could see them tick, tick, ticking the calculations of what she had said. He knew it was true; she would never forgive him if he completed the act. <br/>
“Alright, I will make him my wedding present to you.” <br/>
     Farhad lay on the ground, delirious. Erik untied his horse from the tree, jerking the reins, pulling harshly on the animal’s bit. He mounted and then held out his hand to her.<br/>
“We cannot leave him here,” she stammered through her tears.<br/>
“He is alive, what else do you want? Come now!”<br/>
“But we cannot -”<br/>
“You stupid woman, whose heart breaks for those who don’t deserve it!” He leaned down and gripped her by both arms, pulling her onto the horse in front of him. He gave the horse a sharp kick in the sides and they took off into the night.<br/>
    What they did not know was that as Farhad had crept in their shadow, four others crept in his. As he lay in the grass of the earthly paradise of the Shalimar Gardens, the shadows moved in all around him.</p><p>    She laid down in her own bed, anger pulsing through her body. Sanaa pretended to sleep next to her, but the girl could feel Christine’s rage vibrating through the room. She had never known true anger before he entered her life. She had never known darkness, or fear, or sex, all those things that stormed inside of her now. <br/>
    She hated him. She hated his murderous rage and she hated the awful groveling that she knew would come next. When he would kiss her feet and act like a dog and beg for her mercy - mercy that wouldn’t be needed if only he didn’t try to kill people simply for caring for her!<br/>
    And she loved him, and she feared him, and she desired him, and he was her life and he was a portent of her death.<br/>
    She was losing herself. At every turn her actions had been written by the hands of others. She could not so much as declare she wanted to live without stealing the words from Juliette’s mouth, Juliette who, despite her fierce desire for survival, was destined to die over and over, thousands of times over on the stage. She was trapped in a tragedy that lacked even the decency of being unique to her. She no longer knew herself. She no longer knew her own mind.<br/>
     She crawled through the trap door. He lay on the bed, sleeping fitfully. She knelt beside him and slipped her hands under the silk. She pulled the cold thing out and began to stroke it. He began to stir, but did not fully wake. When it was hard enough she climbed up to straddle him. She guided him inside her and began to balance herself, back and forth, gently until he woke up. She muffled herself, but he cried out in pleasure and moved his hands to her hips. <br/>
“Oh, my love!” he whispered in shock. He thought she had come back to him contrite. She began to thrust her hips harder, making him cry out again. He pulled her closer to him, reaching out for a kiss. But she was not there to be contrite.<br/>
     She took his face in her nails. “Perhaps you have another mask, perhaps this, this Death’s head of yours is just a mask? I will tear it off!” She dug into his awful face. She tore his horrible, dead flesh with her nails, determined to see it bleed. “You think you are built up of death from head to foot, but you are not Death. Didn’t you know that Death comes to me in my bed? He visits me when you make love to me, and even when you don’t, he comes to my bed and he is a far better lover than you! He came to my sick bed and he beckoned me and I almost left with him!” He cried out in pain. “I am not your bride - I am Death’s Bride! And you, you are not Death and you do not decide who lives and who dies!” Deeper and deeper her nails sunk into the unresisting flesh, into his eyes and nasal cavities. Suddenly her thumb slipped through the soft rot of his left cheek, down to his teeth. “I want to know what is underneath all of this rot! What lies beneath this rotting mask?” <br/>
     He grasped at her wrists, using all his strength to pull her hands away. She feared he might snap her bones in two, but she did not stop. She continued to thrust herself over him as she scratched his skin until it bled in rivulets from under his eyes. Blood covered her mehndi-laced fingers and streamed down his face, all the while he stayed erect and throbbing inside of her. <br/>
“You viper!” he hissed, twisting her wrists away from his face.<br/>
“You demon!” She tried to break away from him, afraid of what he might do to her now that she had wounded him. But he held her, rolling them both off the bed and crashing onto the floor. Now he hung over her, continuing to thrust her, his blood dripping into her face. <br/>
“My darling Christine, you can tear my eyes out, I will still love you and I will never, never leave you. Love is what you will find under the rot, eternal love, perfect love, earthly love, rotten love,” he growled. <br/>
     She could see clearly now the hole she had made in his face. Blood poured out of it and onto her chest. She put all her strength and concentration into the hate that pounded over her. She felt all the love burn away so that there was only hate between them as he drove himself to finish. His blood fell like rain onto her forehead. She put her hands over her eyes.<br/>
     When he was done, a sob cracked out of her chest. Her body was wracked with tremors. He held her tightly, as if never to let go. <br/>
“I cannot live in this darkness!” She wrenched herself from his embrace and escaped into the Green Room. </p><p>     Sanaa was sitting at the edge of her bed. They had not been quiet. She brought her hands to her face in horror at the sight of her friend before her. There was blood on Christine’s face, her chest, dripping from her fingertips onto the floor.<br/>
“But what has he done to you!”<br/>
“It is not my blood. It is what I did to him,” she wept. “My poor husband!”<br/>
     The morning was fast approaching. Sanaa worked quickly to clean her up. She pulled off the ruined chemise, and took a rag to Christine’s face, neck, and chest, all caked with blood. She scrubbed her fingertips free of the flesh and blood caught under her nails. She took a fresh rag and wet the hair around her face, causing new streaks of blood to slide down her cheeks.<br/>
“Sanaa, do you have a needle?”<br/>
“Of course.”<br/>
“His face - it will need to be stitched up,” she said through her tears.<br/>
“Oh, friend. I - I could do it for you.”<br/>
“No, no I -”<br/>
“Let me. He may be angry with you.”<br/>
“But you have never seen him without his mask. He could be very mean to you. No, let me do it.”<br/>
“I think he has more reason to be angry with you than me. I will go now." She gathered a small sewing kit and tentatively crossed into the Red Room. Christine feared for her and listened intensely.<br/>
     A few minutes later she came back looking ashen.<br/>
“It is very bad Christine.”<br/>
“Did he let you touch it?”<br/>
“No. He said it was no use, that stitches don’t work on his - his skin. He says they will slip out and only make the - the hole larger.” </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Again, I'm so sorry if you found this chapter too much. </p><p>Masks beneath masks<br/>This horror scene is a reference to and inversion of the unmasking scene in Leroux, Chapter XII, Apollo's Lyre. I have even lifted some complete sentences and rearranged them like puzzle pieces. Erik himself proposes that his own head may be a mask itself. An interesting interpretation I read somewhere, while the musical has fossilized the idea that Erik wears a skull mask to the masquerade, this isn't clear in the novel. He could in fact be walking around mask-less at the masquerade, using his actual face as a mask. Or, as the only reveler showing his true face while everyone else hides theirs. </p><p>Scorpions and Grasshoppers<br/>Leroux has mashed up so many references in his novel that nothing could be random. But I cannot figure out what he is referring to with the scorpion and grasshopper figures. I found an Aesop's fable about these two animals, but the story itself doesn't seem to hold any particular message that would be relevant to Erik and the situation he has created. So, I'm not satisfied that the fable has anything to do with Leroux's novel. If anyone has an idea of what Leroux is referencing with the scorpion and the grasshopper, please share. I would love to know more.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. La destinée m'enchaîne à toi</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The day has arrived for Baba's cruel vision of a wedding.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There is violence in this chapter, but not quite as bad as the last chapter. Everyone stay safe and wear your masks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     Sanaa scrubbed blood from under even her own fingernails. It was everywhere, on the floor, on their bedding, on the chemise rolled up and tossed into a corner. It was disgusting. Sanaa had enjoyed the excitement of her family’s strange houseguests, but this was too much. An entire day of wedding festivities lay before them and she was already exhausted.<br/>     She could hear her father enter the Red Room and express shock at what he found. It was his responsibility to prepare the masked groom for the wedding, as it was hers to prepare the bride. Her poor father would have to convince that strange man to at least wash his face, as she had been unable to do. Hopefully, the day would go as planned and tomorrow would be a new beginning for all of them.<br/>     By the time her aunties and cousins invaded the Green Room, it was spotless and none of them would ever know the horror of the early morning hours. Christine was gently woken up. They dressed her carefully in her red bridal saree. They assembled the jewelry on her neck and wrists and ears and nose, attaching the nath by a chain to her hair. They outlined her eyes in kohl. Some of them lamented that the mehndi on her hands had already begun to fade. They sat with her as the hours passed and the courtyard filled with people. A large white tent was erected, blocking the view below. There was a brief commotion when the imam was forcefully brought across the threshold. If Baba had insisted on a wedding as a means to embarrass Erik, Erik had insisted on the blessings of an imam as a thorn in Baba’s side. The imam did not even know enough to be afraid of the masked groom, rather, he was afraid of Baba himself.<br/>     Christine trembled. The older women rubbed her arms and comforted her. They did not seem to fully grasp that she was already married and the thing she was afraid of was not her wedding night, rather, the wedding itself. <br/>     Hours went by with singing and eating and joke telling until it was finally time. They lay a sheer red gold-flecked veil over her face. She could not believe they would laugh at her, but she feared it all the same.<br/>     Sanaa embraced her fiercely. For all the trouble the strange woman had been, she did love her and hoped that Baba would not be too cruel, whatever his plan may be.<br/>    They held a canopy of flowers over her head as she descended the stairs and entered the wedding tent. The red veil obscured her vision almost completely; she could not see just how many people had packed themselves into the tent to watch the demon wedding, but she could feel them pressing in with morbid interest. Sanaa held her hand tightly, guiding her towards the place in the center where Erik sat before the imam, Latif at his side. She could feel their eyes on her, watching her every step.<br/>“Who are all these people?” she asked Sanaa.<br/>“Family, neighbors, business associates,” she whispered. They were mostly men, the women segregated to the other side of the tent.<br/>     Christine knelt before the imam, who shook with fear. She looked forward and not at Erik. Their shoulders only lightly touched. The imam recited several verses from the Quran, which Sanaa faithfully relayed in French. They vocalized their assent, as Sanaa instructed them to do. They signed the imam’s paper. There was a crackling of laughter from the guests behind them. Christine was offended on the holy man’s behalf. Neither Baba nor Erik seemed to care much about his blessings, but she did. She added her own prayers over his. <br/>     A red dupatta was unfolded over their heads, shrouding them in temporary privacy. A mirror was placed before them. Sanaa lifted the veil from Christine’s face. She found her husband’s black eyes staring back at her through the reflection, through his mask. It was a new mask of light leather and intricate beadwork. She had never seen him wear a mask so delicate and beautiful. She wondered who had made it. She took in the rest of him, his red silk kurta, his silk wrapped head, hiding the burns and peeling and rot. He almost looked handsome, except that there was blood crusted along his jawline. She regarded the matching leather gloves, the high collar of his kurta. He exposed as little skin as possible, but there was no mask large enough to hide what she had done to him.<br/>“Look at me, Christine,” he demanded playfully. “Je suis vraiment le roi de Lahore.”<br/>“Sita and Alim die,” she said mournfully.<br/>“Sita and Alim get to spend an eternity in each other’s arms in the gardens of paradise and I have every right to hope for the same for us,” he hissed, taking her hand. <br/>     He admired her image in the mirror. She was every bit the orientalist fantasy he had envisioned when he first imagined bringing her to Lahore.   <br/>     Her heart softened with pity and remorse for what she had done. He was drunk. Latif had probably given him alcohol for the pain. It was evident that opening his mouth to speak was agonizing. <br/>     The dupatta was lifted from their heads. There was an uncertain energy from the restless crowd. With the ceremony over, the imam was promptly escorted out of the tent and off the property. Christine and Erik were led to a raised dais covered in flowers. Sanaa sat next to Christine, but Latif went to sit next to Baba and his three brothers on another dais on the other side of the tent. The wedding guests, separated by gender, sat on the ground in small groups. The feast began right away, women carrying out trays of food and pitchers of wine and beer. Plate after plate of lamb and chicken and roti and kulcha piled up around them. Christine had no interest in eating and Erik could not, even if he had wanted to. But he did drink. He downed cup after cup of wine, half of which poured out of the stinging hole in his cheek and down the front of his fine kurta. He winced and sipped and winced again.<br/>     She tried to tell them to stop bringing food. She turned to Sanaa and asked her to intervene. But the plates kept coming. Two men brought out heavy silver trays with lids. One was opened before Erik and a flurry of flying insects burst into his face. She knew right away what would be in the tray placed before her but before she could turn and stop him, the man lifted the lid to reveal a scorpion the size of a rat. It was agitated and poised for attack. She killed the scream in her throat, knowing without looking that Baba waited eagerly to see her reaction. Instead of showing her fear, she angrily grabbed the plate and threw it back at the man who had delivered it. The scorpion flew into his face and landed on the ground with a hiss. The man shrieked as his feet danced around the creature, which scuttled off into the crowd, causing ripples of commotion until someone stabbed it with a knife. From across the tent she could hear the old man’s obscene laughter. But Baba was not the only one with an obscene laugh. Erik laughed too, throwing his manic amusement across the tent and into Baba’s ear. The old man swatted at it, but he couldn’t remove the voice from his ear until Erik was finished fucking with him.<br/>    Baba called out to Erik in annoyance, “It is time for your bride to sing for us. We are all waiting.” <br/>     But Sanaa jumped to her feet. “Baba, if I may, Mahiwal and I have prepared a song and we would like to sing it now.” He grumbled his consent. Mahiwal, looking as supremely bored as ever, settled down next to his cousin and began to pluck out a melody on his lute. Sanaa sang the ballad of Mirza and Sahiban, her voice searing and sad. A hush fell over the wedding guests and they gave her their full attention. This was the favored granddaughter of a great and feared man, they wouldn’t dream of insulting her with snorts of mockery. <br/>     Though Christine did not understand the words, she remembered the tragic story Sanaa had told her and she was moved. She thought of the feeling of Erik’s head in her lap, beneath the tree in the garden, the moment just before they were discovered. If only they could have stayed still in that moment forever. <br/>     When Sanaa’s song was finished, Baba again demanded that Christine sing. The guests looked at her expectantly, hungrily. She turned to her husband. <br/>“We can only survive this night together.” She took his hand. “Sing with me. Let us sing the Wedding Song. Perhaps we can convince them that there is love between us; that you haven’t bewitched me with anything but love.”<br/>     He nodded and rose to his full height, pulling her hand to his chest. Like Mirza and Sahiban, Romeo and Juliette seemed like inauspicious wedding guests and the thought had crossed Christine’s mind that it was a poor selection. But she could think of no better song to demonstrate their love before an audience ready to hate them as sinful miscegenation of demon and maiden.<br/>    They began:</p><p>
  <em>Nuit d’hyménée, oh douce nuit d’amour! La destinée m’enchaîne à toi sans retour</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Oh, hymeneal night, sweet night of love! Destiny chains me to you, without return</em>
</p><p>     His voice rang clear and beautiful, despite the effort it took for him to open his injured mouth. He seemed to forget all the modesty rules of Baba’s haveli as he moved to stand behind her. His long arms slid under her own, protectively encircling her as they sang. His gloved fingers interlocked with hers and rested on his forearms. His voice carried hers.<br/>     She mourned for him. He could have been great. He could have commanded any stage in the world. He enraptured the room now. How had he learned to sing like this? To memorize all the great Operas with such perfection, with no training, no teacher? Was he really singing at all? Or only performing his brilliant mimicry? The love with which he sang to her now, was it mimicry too? Could it be that he did not know how to love, and could only mimic what he thought was love? To buy her gifts, to caress her, to worship her on his knees, but could it all be a mere imitation of love? Did he play-act even now?</p><p>
  <em>Ton doux regard m’enivre, ta voix ravit mes sens!</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Your sweet gaze intoxicates me, your voice delights my senses!</em>
</p><p>     Or could it be that it was the evil with which he conducted himself that was the mimicry? Could it be that he was not really evil, and could only mimic what he thought was evil, because the world had never let him do anything else? He was not really so wicked, was he? Not when he loved her so much.</p><p>
  <em>Sous tes baisers de flamme, le ciel rayonne en moi.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Beneath your ardent kisses, heaven shines within me.</em>
</p><p>    But why couldn’t he find a way to love her that didn’t drag them both to hell? Shouldn’t her love have been enough to transform him and bring him into the light? Why wasn’t it enough? <br/>    He moved to face her. He took her head in his hands, his fingers spread across her cheeks, his palms tilting her head upwards so that she was forced to meet his black, deep set eyes as they sang the final refrain. </p><p>
  <em>Je t’ai donné mon âme, à toi, toujours à toi.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I have given you my soul, to you, yours forever.</em>
</p><p>À toi, à toi, à toi. For Christine, there was only Erik and his voice. Everyone else had faded away. <br/>     The wedding tent was silent. Teams streamed down Sanaa’s face.<br/>     Until Baba cackled. And then, following his lead, they all cackled. What a ridiculous sight! This ugly man pawing and warbling to this beautiful woman. What a fool! He has bewitched her; she has allowed herself to be bewitched by a monster - that whore! <br/>     Bhangra drummers and dancers exploded into the tent. They made their way to the middle of the room, clearing a space for themselves. The wedding guests cheered and forgot all about the grotesque spectacle of love they had just witnessed. They performed for some time, dancing in concentric circles of brightly colored kurtas and drums. Some of the male guests joined and there was shouting and more pitchers of beer and wine were brought out. <br/>     The music was thrilling. As it went on and on it became hypnotizing. She was entranced. She turned to Erik to see if he were entranced too. But he was staring intensely across the tent. Not at Baba, but at Latif. He had sobered up quickly.<br/>     Then the drummers went silent and streamed out of the tent. The space they had created in the middle of the crowd remained and it became a kind of stage. Two black lambs were led out on ropes. They were taken to one end of the stage and then two little boys, elegantly dressed in miniature wedding clothes, came out and stood on the other side. They were each given a thin red cord. <br/>“Sanaa, what is going on?” Christine whispered. “Sanaa?”<br/>     The little boys spun the cords over their heads. There was a double whistling in the air and both lambs bleated in pain as the weighted cords spun quickly around their necks. Each little boy ran over to their respective lamb and pulled the ends of the cord tightly. They double wrapped the cords around their little gloved palms for better leverage and squeezed all the life out of the lambs’ necks. They struggled only briefly. The cords cut into the skin and thin trickles of blood ran out onto the ground where just minutes before the dancers had turned their heels. There was applause and the two little princes bowed and ran off. Others came to move the corpses away.<br/>“If one practices this art on the robust flesh of animals, just imagine the strength that will be developed in the fingers, the numbness to life, to the struggles of other species,” he whispered to her. <br/>“Is this how you learned to kill?”<br/>“It was one of the many ways. Yes.”<br/>     On the other side of her, Sanaa was discreetly retching into her dupatta. <br/>“Are they your cousins?” Christine asked.<br/>“No. They are just street children, in borrowed clothing. Poor creatures.”</p><p>     Looking quite pleased, Baba stood up to speak, leaning drunkenly on his cane. “<em>To all of my guests, I extend my warmest welcome. I express my deepest gratitude for your presence here today, to help us witness and celebrate the marriage of this monster to this fair maiden here. Many decades ago, this strange man came to us, to learn our arts and secrets. He frightened my children with his ugliness, but I accepted him into my home all the same. He took everything we knew and then he went away. I heard that he even ended up in the court of the Shah of Persia, utilizing the skills he learned in Punjab for fame and fortune. And then he went on to work for the Sultan of Constantinople. And never once did he think to bring back and share any of these riches or to invite any of our young men to join him at court. He forgot all about Baba and this family. And then he appears, as if dropped from the sky! He brings us this lovely creature, this famous singer from the grand Paris Opera Palace of Garnier, and tries to convince us that she is his wife. To convince us that she even loves him - for himself!</em>” There was laughter all around them. “<em>But I cannot believe she loves him. For who could? And certainly she is not satisfied or faithful. I will show you.</em>”<br/>      Mahiwal came into the tent pulling a rope, for once looking more alert. At the end of the rope stumbled a dazed Farhad, his eyes hollow, his nose still bloody from the night before.<br/>     Christine let out a deep wail. She turned to Erik in fury.<br/>“What is this?”<br/>“This isn’t my doing,” he said, his eyes again searching across the tent for Latif. “Your camel poet was not part of the plan.”<br/>     She turned to Sanaa, but Sanaa was gone. <br/>     She wailed again, covering her eyes with her hands. Men laughed on one side, women hummed with disapproval on the other. Baba was very pleased.<br/>“<em>Despite that he is ugly, he is very, very skilled. This man wields the cord better than anyone I have ever taught or even my own teacher. He never misses. Let him demonstrate his skills to you now. See how we should be happy to have him back in our fold.</em>” <br/>     Baba held out his hand to Erik and called him to the middle of the room. As Erik stood, Christine clutched his sleeve. She moved to her knees and pressed her face into his hands.<br/>“Please don’t do this, Erik! Please, please, please. I love you, but I will die! If he dies I will die! You will kill all my love for you, my angel, my love, please don’t! He is innocent-” He pulled his hands away.<br/>     Look! Look how she pleads for her lover’s life - unfaithful whore! But who can blame her? Of course she has a lover. Who could stand to look at that man for an eternity?<br/>     Erik turned to Baba and opened his arms wide in consent. A small boy came out and handed him a red cord, which he began to wind around his palms. Baba returned to his place on the dais, next to Latif and his other sons. He settled into his pillows, ready to watch the final act of the night.<br/>“Please, can you unbind this man? It would be no challenge at all if the prey cannot even attempt to protect himself.” There was laughter. Mahiwal untied the ropes that bound Farhad’s hands behind his back. The poet let out a string of prayers for certainly, his time had come.<br/>     Erik turned and spoke to his wedding guests, “I would also like to welcome you to my wedding, this demon-wedding. You have seen how my bride sings to make the angels weep. But have you seen how her husband can make them shout in horror? Have you?” His voice was suddenly all around them, in the deepest, most intimate part of their ears. They covered their ears with their hands and lowered their heads as if to duck the blows of sound. Even Christine covered her ears and fell forward. Farhad trembled in pure terror. He clasped his hands over his ears and shouted his prayers as loud as he could, but even so, he could not hear them over the voice. Erik threw his voice into Farhad’s ears alone, “You foolish boy! I told you never to make my wife cry again!”<br/>     And then he pulled off his mask. Truly, he was uglier now than the day he had been born. For the love of his life had shredded the skin of his face and had created a hole so wide one could see several of his lower teeth and even the gums in which they sat - all without him even opening his terrible mouth. But his mouth was now opened wide and he was screaming and he was whistling the cord over his head. He let it fly into the air.<br/>     It was Baba. It was always Baba. Baba, so arrogant and secure in his cruelty that he placed a weapon into the hand of the object of his mockery and thought he could still determine its victim. He had thought Erik wanted to return to the haveli. He was offering the masked man a place among thieves after some light hazing and demonstrations of loyalty. He had gravely misunderstood Erik’s intentions.<br/>     It was Latif. It was Latif who took the weighted ends of the cord and cinched them around his father’s throat. Latif, so good and decent he knew his father and his cruel reign over the family had to end. And in the chaos and anarchy, the unmasked man now holding all eyes captive with his display of hideous glory, no one even tried to stop him. He pulled until his father’s head turned red and swollen with blood. When it was over, his bloodied tongue hung out of the corner of his old mouth. <br/>     A woman screamed, and for once it was not Christine. “Baba is dead!”</p><p>     Wedding guests ran about in terror, searching for the exit. The women of the family gathered the children, to push them back into the house. In all the confusion, made worse by the inopportune entrance of the bhangra troupe, Christine made her way to Farhad where he crouched on the ground. <br/>“Farhad,” she touched the back of his head. “Farhad you must run. Go to the back, to the stables. Take Mahtab and go far away from here. Go now, before someone remembers you are here!”<br/>“Why did he show me mercy?”<br/>“I- I don’t know. Please go, friend. Please forget about me.” </p><p>     Erik grabbed her hand. “You must follow me.” She pulled up her red silk skirts and followed him into the house and upstairs to the Green Room, through the trap door and then down, down, down the black staircase, past the scorpions and grasshoppers, down to the pit of the haveli, under the first floor. He knew the way, his feet barely touched the steps as he dragged her behind him, stumbling into the darkness. She felt that she was again falling through a trapdoor in a stage and none of it was real and still she would never be able to climb out of it. <br/>     They entered what felt like a small room, just a cold closet in the ground. He lit a match and held it to the lantern he already knew would be there. The golden light illuminated a hexagon of mirrors. The mirrors were angled in such a perfect way that she saw her face, still adorned in her wedding jewelry, a thousand times over no matter which direction she looked. And behind her, a thousand times, an infinite number of times, she saw his unmasked face, black eyes burning red, staring back at her, no matter which direction.</p><p> </p><p>--------------------------------------------</p><p>Here is the version of Nuit d'hyménée that I watched over and over to write the duet scene in this chapter. It's really beautiful and the singers are very emotional and physical, which is how I wanted this scene to be. And then everyone laughs at them.&lt;br /&gt;<br/>Romeo &amp;; Juliette : Duet "Nuit d'hyménée... il faut partir ,hélas!": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8LsHwJXfA&lt;br%20/&gt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8LsHwJXfA&lt;br /&gt;</a><br/><br/></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Please leave a review, comment, or question. I love reading feedback - any feedback. Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Palace of Mirrors: Part 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Redemption arcs are hard.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No warnings, no one dies, just high emotion and lots of crying.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“He was guilty of not a few horrors, for he seemed not to know the difference between good and evil.”</em>
</p><p>       There was running along the floorboards above them. A single woman, a favored daughter-in-law, continued to scream and wail, “Baba is dead!” There was shouting, arguing, negotiation as the family came to terms with regime change.<br/>     As Christine stared up at the ceiling, he closed in behind her, sliding one hand across her throat, fingering her necklace and earrings, as his other hand ran along the embroidery over her breasts. She was so beautiful, he wanted only to regard her longer, to appreciate the flecks of gold of her saree, sparkling in the lamp light, reflecting for an eternity into his mirrors. A thousand times Christine. She caught his gaze and turned suddenly into his chest. He held her as she shivered uncontrollably, adrenaline draining down her body until she settled into relief. They were not dead. She looked up at him, then past him at the mirrors. The room felt vaguely familiar, though wholly bizarre. <br/>“Erik, what is this place?” <br/>“You do not recognize it? You could say this was the prototype for a certain room in my house by the lake.”<br/>“You mean - you mean that room where you - ?” She again trembled involuntarily. “Did Baba have you kill people here?”<br/>“No. That didn’t come until much later. This was my room and the only victim here was Erik. He would come here and stare into his ugliness reflected an infinite number of times, in search of the one face among the multitude that might be a normal face.” He reached behind her and splayed his long fingers on a mirror. “Even a beautiful face. Christine, why do you tremble so? Do not be frightened of me.”<br/>“You have dragged me across the world to show me the same horror you could have shown me in Paris.” She pulled away.<br/>“No, no. The room in Paris was much more sophisticated.”<br/>“What is wrong with you?” she hissed, holding her temples. “No one cares how sophisticated it was. Just shut the fuck up.” <br/>“Christine, don’t curse. I don’t like it when you curse.”<br/>She calmed herself. “You just killed a man in front of his entire family. For what?”<br/>“Because they asked me to,” he said, without hesitation.<br/>“But why? Why you?”<br/>“Because I came here for anarchy,” he grinned.<br/>“You are no anarchist! Even the anarchists have their beliefs. You don’t believe in anything! Such a selfish creature you are! They could have killed us both for interfering with their family. They may still!” Christine looked up at the ceiling. The floorboards still creaked over them. She brought her voice down into a whisper. “How long must we stay in this awful room?”<br/>“Latif will tell us when it is safe. We will have to sleep here. Look, my love, I haven’t been so selfish. I have brought you bedding,” he said, pointing to a pile of blankets in the middle of the floor, along with a small basket of food, a decanter of water. He was quite proud of himself for having thought of it.<br/>“I cannot live like this! This is too much - I followed you anywhere you wished to take me, I gave up everything, I forfeited even the sun for you! But you’ve only led me in a great circle of madness from which I shall never be free!”<br/>“Do not become hysterical.” He moved to embrace her. <br/>“Do not touch me!” She pushed him away, crashing him into the mirror behind him, a spider web of cracks appearing behind his head. She retreated to the other side so that they were as far apart as the room would allow. <br/>     He touched the back of his head. A piece of mirror fell off the wall and shattered on the floor. The wood behind it was black with mold. <br/>“You are going to leave me! You cannot leave me,” he said desperately, sliding to his knees. “It is this place. It has driven me mad!”<br/>“You were mad long before we arrived here.”<br/>“This is the root of my madness.”<br/>“No! You cannot blame this on others. It is what you have brought inside you, all the way from France. I have lived in this place too and I have not gone mad.” She kicked at his ideas in disgust.<br/>“Oh?” he asked, lifting his face to her, lightly pushing his tongue against the hole in his cheek. “My love, there is more darkness in you than I ever thought possible.” He licked his lips as if to savor that darkness. <br/>“But it is you that has awakened it in me! Not Lahore, not this house. This is just a house. These are just mirrors. They can only show you what was already there. They can only give back to you what you first gave them. If you are tired of the madness, then stop spewing it out into the world. You cannot blame all of Punjab for your insanity!” She stood over him now. “You have brought me so far, but I still don’t know what you are trying to show me. You told me you would show me the world of flesh and blood, the world beyond the stage, and yet we have just been forced onto a blood covered stage to pretend we love each other for the amusement of others. It was worse than Opera!”<br/>“It was real! It was real - we really do love each other!”</p><p>“I do not know what is real,” she said quietly. She leaned against a mirror gently and slid down to the floor, but the mirror was fragile and fine black lines crept up towards the ceiling behind her.<br/>     She embraced her knees and buried her face in her skirts. She found that she could no longer cry. He was always making her cry. She was so tired of thinking about Erik and his madness that she began to think of other, brighter things. A girlhood memory of walking on a beach blinded with light, the feel of her father’s hand in hers. Suddenly, she was overtaken with the desperate desire to go home. She leaned back into the mirror too forcefully and the fine lines spread out further over her head.<br/>     He crawled across the floor to her. He tried to push his head into her lap, but it was too well guarded. <br/>“Just sit next to me, Erik.” He leaned against the mirror, his shoulder pressed against hers, staring forward. “Your beautiful wedding shirt,” she said, touching his chest. “It’s covered in wine and - and blood. It’s disgusting.” She began to unbutton his high collar and all the buttons that came halfway down the front. She tugged at the kurta. He was reluctant to take it off; he did little to help her pull it over his head. She tossed the soaked garment away from them. <br/>     She regarded his emaciation through the mirrors. He looked more pitiful than ever, without a mask or any shield of clothing. His skin was so pale it almost glowed in the dim light, but not quite. His chest caved gently. His ribs were well defined. Even his arms, strong enough to effortlessly lift his wife to bed or to hide a body along the highway, were as thin as rails.<br/>     Her jewelry was beginning to weigh on her. She reached up to remove the nath but cringed in pain. As the skin had only been pierced the day before, it was still sensitive to the touch. <br/>“Please, help me.” He delicately removed the heavy piece from her nose and the chain from her hair. He unclasped the necklace and bracelets and earrings. He wrapped them all carefully in a cloth and tucked them into the basket of food. He smoothed out her hair with his hands. He then moved his hands over the saree.<br/>“May I?”<br/>“I don’t even know how to take it off,” she mused. He began to unwind the spools of silk, but she stopped him. “No, no. Not yet.” <br/>     She took his hand and sadly laced her fingers in his. She stared into the mirrors, at the five lamps, the five couples staring back at them. “Even your torture-chamber in Paris was a fake then - just an imitation of this room here. I do not know what is real anymore. Is it your love that is the forgery or your evil?” She began to speak softly, slowly, avoiding his eyes. “Do you know that more terrifying to me than your room of mirrors and forest, were the other rooms in your house by the lake? Those tacky rooms which you had carefully arranged so as to appear normal, but which could never be normal for the very fact that they were in your underground house? That heinous counterfeit furniture that could have been found in any ordinary bourgeois house, made more hideous by being in your house, which was not ordinary or bourgeois. They were rooms for dead people. Your attempts to be normal, your fake flowers, your fake noses, your masks - they are all the more terrifying to me in their fakery. <br/>     You said to me that night, that last night in Paris, that you were so tired of having a torture-chamber in your house, that you were ready to be a normal person. Poor unhappy Erik who doesn’t know that one can never be a normal person if they have ever built a torture-chamber in their house. Why does he even try? If he knows he can never take his wife to the park on a Sunday afternoon in the light of day, then why is that what he wants most of all?” She took his hand. “What do you really want, Erik? What have you ever really wanted?”</p><p>     He said very quietly, “Sometimes all I want is to see the world burn.”<br/>“And you want to see me burn with it?” <br/>     He fell onto her and crushed his face into her skirts. He took her hands and covered them with kisses. Excessive amounts of kisses. As if he didn’t know the proper amount of kisses to show contrition and could only perform an imitation of contrition. <br/>“No, no, never! I only want to be loved. I only want to be loved for myself! You must love me Christine, it is the only way to redeem me!” She lightly placed her hands over his bony shoulders. She pet him like the dog he was pretending to be, running her hands behind his ears, down the bare skin of his spine. “You must love me Christine, oh, I would be your dog, I am only a poor dog, ready to die for you, let me be the shadow of your poor dog!” <br/>     How she hated his groveling.<br/>“I cannot save you from yourself.”<br/>“Help me! I am irredeemable,” he cried, burying his head in her skirts, up to his malformed ears.<br/>“No one is irredeemable, Erik. I know you do not believe in God and maybe you think there is no one above you to grant you pardon. But if you have never confessed the hurt that you have caused, even if only to yourself, then you can never be redeemed.”<br/>“You, you could grant me pardon!”<br/>“Not before you pardon yourself.”<br/>“But how?”<br/>“Don’t you feel any contrition, Erik?”<br/>     He was silent.<br/>“I cannot teach you how to be contrite. Aren’t you sorry for any of it?” <br/>     She could see it, he wasn’t evil; he was just a child. No one had taught him how to be sorry for anyone other than himself. He couldn’t see beyond his own suffering. He rested his head on her legs, thoughtlessly passing the red silk through his fingertips. <br/>“I am sorry for many things, my love,” she whispered.<br/>“What could Christine have to be sorry for? Perfect and pure Christine?” <br/>     She very lightly traced the outline of his injury with her finger.<br/>“I am so sorry for hurting you.” <br/>“This?” He took hold of her hand and pressed her fingers through it, so that she touched his teeth. She tried to pull her hand away, but he did not let go. He pressed her fingers further into his mouth so that he could bite them. <br/>“Stop. You are mocking me. I tell you, it is the worst thing I have done in my life, made worse because I did it to the one I love most!” He let go. He turned and buried his face again.<br/>“And I am sorry for burning your music. I wish I had not done that. But now, you must forgive me for it.”<br/>“I deserved it all! Every insult, every harm!”<br/>“No. You must hear my confession and you must forgive me. It doesn’t matter if you deserved it. You must still release me from my transgressions. You must forgive me, my husband.” She took his head in her hands to force him to look at her. “Forgive me!”<br/>“I - I forgive you, my angel,” he said, agitated. He had the custom of holding a reserve of bitterness, in case he needed it later. And now he felt it part from him. <br/>     She bent over his face and kissed him. He pushed his tongue against her lips so that she could taste the blood swimming in his mouth. “And now, you must confess to me all the pain you have caused in this world.”<br/>“It is such a long story. If I were to tell you everything, every soul I have taken, then you could never love me again.”<br/>“It is you that cannot love yourself. Tell me what you have hidden even from yourself.”<br/>“I do not want to talk about these things. There is no need for me to love myself if you love me.”<br/>     She sat up straighter, almost pushing him out of her lap.<br/>“I tell you Erik, I will leave you. I will do whatever it takes to escape from you. I cannot live in your darkness any longer.” He clung to her. <br/>“No, no, you cannot leave me.”<br/>     And so he lay in her arms and told her the entire story. All the ways he had been a brutal tool for the grievances of others, all the bloody ways he avenged his own petty grievances. From Romani camps to the streets of Lahore to the Russian fairgrounds of Nizhny to the court of Mazenderan to the palace of Yildiz to the bowels of Paris and all the souls that lay in his wake. She wept for him and held him to her breast. <br/>“How can you love me, after hearing all of it?” he sobbed.<br/>“Because I am bound to you. You have bound me to you very carefully. First through music, through grief, then through fear and violence and marriage and isolation, and now desire. You have even bound me to you with desire. You have made it so that I do not want to ever leave you. Now you must repent. There will be no more pleasure or torture in those old memories now, you must let them go. And then you must ask for pardon.”<br/>“Christine,” he resisted.<br/>“You must say it, Erik. Say it.”<br/>     He hesitated. He wanted everything. He wanted to possess her and he wanted to keep his bitterness, his hate, and most of all, his power as an acolyte of Death. What if he didn’t want to be redeemed after all? He wanted to be loved and he wanted the world to burn. Why must she make him choose? He had noticed it, she had grown to like his Death’s head. He believed it was his proximity to Death that she found his most handsome feature. Why did she insist he deny it?<br/>"Say it!"<br/>     It came involuntarily, a crack from somewhere deep in his chest. <br/>“Forgive me!” he cried out. “Please forgive me everything, for all the souls I have taken. Forgive me, my wife, for all that I have taken from you.”<br/>“You have taken <em>everything</em> from me,” she closed her eyes.<br/>“Forgive me.”<br/>“It is done.” She leaned down to kiss him again, still cradling him in her arms. He turned his head to her breasts and breathed in her warmth while she stroked his sunken cheeks with the back of her hand. Suddenly, she did not want to be in this position of cradling him any longer and she made him sit up.<br/>“Please, help me?” She motioned for him to unwind the rest of the saree. He helped her out of her heavy wedding clothes, and she helped him out of the rest of his. She climbed into his sitting lap and wound her legs around his waist. She held onto his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. Her eyes fluttered as she pressed her breasts to his cold skin for the very first time. That was how she wanted to stay, peaceful and still, until they each noticed that their embrace was ecstatic, aligning their sexes and pulse.<br/>     He entered her very slowly. Her movements against him were subtle, almost imperceptible. He watched her back flex in the mirrors. He watched his own skeletal fingers claw her flesh. He thought of that time long ago, when he was a youth not yet come to terms with the lonely future that lay ahead of him. When he had constructed the room, he had never imagined what he might one day possess in that very place. His fingers clenched the fat of her hips more tightly, as if she were only an illusion that might slip through them at any moment.<br/>“I cannot live in your darkness anymore,” she said between gasps for air. “I want to live in the sun.”<br/>“You shall have the sun and the stars and moon, my angel,” he pulled her along his length. He bit her ear.<br/>“I want to go home,” she whispered. She leaned back against him so that he reached further into her. <br/>“Anywhere, I will take you anywhere you want to go.” <br/>     There was no beginning or end to them, no climax or release, only a dreamy few hours of endless kisses, of falling asleep still joined together.</p><p>     Sanaa opened the trap door from the Green Room and carefully descended the steep staircase, past the scorpions and grasshoppers, down into the basement of her own home. She carried a lantern in one hand and his mask in the other. She gently pushed on the door at the end of the stairs and it creaked open onto the dark room. Her nose filled with the scent of sweat and decayed wood. She stepped in and felt broken glass crunch beneath her slipper. She gasped. She saw them where they lay in the middle of the oddly shaped room, an indecent tangle of limbs, blessedly covered by a quilt. The floor was scattered with thousands of shards of broken mirror. Never having seen the room before, she did not know the dazzling spectacle she had missed. The dark, moldy walls were now bare. <br/>“These two!” she muttered, averting her eyes. But what had these people done to themselves?<br/>     Christine’s head lifted sleepily from his chest. <br/>“My father has restored order to the house. You may come up now.” She left the mask at the foot of the staircase and ascended back to the Green Room. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter was the hardest yet for me to write. This relationship is complicated and unhealthy and Erik has more problems than Christine could possibly cure. She leans on the spiritual framework she understands to try to help him. But do you think he is actually irredeemable?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Orphée et Eurydice et Hadès</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Christine and Erik return to France and make plans to head north, but first a detour.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     A blinding morning sunlight danced across the Arabian Sea. A young woman in a corseted white lace dress with a matching lace parasol leaned slightly over the ship railing. Much too far for the young man’s comfort. Her long hair blew wild in the wind; she made no attempt to capture it. He had seen her there every morning since the ship had left Karachi, two weeks ago. He approached her gently, but still, she gave a jolt of fright as he drew near. <br/>“It is a fine morning,” he said, in English. <br/>“Je ne parle pas anglais,” she said, with an apologetic smile.<br/>“Oh, you are French?” He reverted to his clumsy, grade school language and again asked her about the weather. She humored him, even complimented his accent. <br/>     He looked down at her hands, which still clasped the railing before them. <br/>“Have you recently been to a wedding?” he asked, pointing with an invasive finger to the faint lines of mehndi that still traced her hands. He noted at the same time the very small fleck of gold that pierced her nose. It would have been invisible to him if he were not standing so close to her. Too close; his finger had nearly grazed her skin.<br/>“Yes,” she said, looking forward towards the water. “My own. Just a few weeks ago.”<br/>“Your husband, is he Hindustani?” <br/>“No. He is French, like me.”<br/>“But why do you wear mehndi then? It is very curious to see mehndi on a European lady’s hands.”<br/>     His questions were too intimate. She looked up at his face. He was young and handsome, his hair so golden it almost glowed in the sun. He reminded her of someone she had once known. The thought made her sad. And then it made her fearful. <br/>“Excuse me, Monsieur. I must go back to my room now.” <br/>“Oh, don’t go. I didn’t mean to -” <br/>     She pushed past him. Stupid man. Was she not allowed to take in the sun from the deck without attracting unwanted conversation?<br/>     She didn’t go back to the room yet though. She merely walked to the other side of the ship. She relished these mornings alone. Earlier, as she stood at the door to leave their room, he had called to her from the bed.<br/>“Don’t go,” he had purred. He threw his voice deep into her ear. She closed her eyes and leaned against the door. She thought, for a moment, of turning around. <br/>“I will return shortly. I just want to take a walk on the deck before the sun gets very hot.”<br/>“Stay with me,” the voice implored her. She pushed herself off the door and opened it. <br/>“You know I will return very shortly, my love.”<br/>     But she was in no hurry. He had probably gone back to sleep. He slept very late these days. She smiled to herself. The steamship was so much better than camels. No more camels or tents or night traveling or sleepwalking. Had he not known the Canal had been completed years ago? Or had he just wanted it to be as hard as possible for them both? It no longer mattered. <br/>     She was surprised the mehndi was still visible on her hands. She lifted her palms to her face. She missed Sanaa. When they emerged from the depths of the house, Latif was waiting for them in the Green Room, Sanaa at his side. He was grateful to Erik for his help. But Erik was a destabilizing force to the extreme and they could no longer stay in Lahore. They were given a beautifully carved trunk full of wedding gifts, including a large sum of money. Latif had joked that it could be considered Christine’s dowry. She did not find this as amusing as Erik. <br/>     She embraced Sanaa as they left.<br/>“I know I have been a burden to you. I can never repay the kindness you have shown me.”<br/>“I think you have more than repaid your debt. Baba was more cruel than I ever understood. Your husband has done our family a great favor.” <br/>     Christine suppressed her disgust.<br/> “Christine? Are you really as safe with him as you think you are?”</p><p>     She returned to their dark estate room. He had been in a sour mood since they boarded. Though they were still thousands of miles away, the ship itself was a floating piece of Europe, where all the old rules applied. He was no longer free to walk about without incurring the gawking and fear of the other passengers. He could no longer hide behind his foreignness. His mask could no longer be just another part of his otherness. It was his otherness. <br/>     For two months, the steamship would make its way around the Arabian Peninsula, through the Suez Canal and back across the Mediterranean. She spent the first few days on the ship again suffering from severe seasickness. She let him take care of her, holding her hair out of the torrents of vomit, bringing her water, cradling her as she drifted into sickly sleep.<br/>     They took their meals in their room. She was still uncertain if her husband needed to eat or not, but he drank much wine, most of it still leaking out of his injury. It had scabbed over, but the skin had not rejoined. They each silently feared the wide gash would be permanent.<br/>     They left the room together only in the shadow of night, to walk along the deck, to take in the night air and to pay their respects to the abyss of black water. He would offer his arm to her and she would grasp it tightly as they walked. He no longer feared she would follow the siren call of the waves. Always the teacher, he would tilt her chin up to the sky and tell her stories of the gods and goddesses fixed in the stars, guiding her mouth to his with a gloved hand. <br/>     One evening, they passed the young Englishman walking along the deck. He looked into her face, searching for her recognition, but she turned away. Erik, who missed nothing, resisted the urge to push the fellow over the railing into the boiling water below, which he was sure he could have achieved with but one flick of his wrist.<br/>“Who was that boy, Christine?”<br/>“No one. No one at all."<br/>     Before leaving Lahore they had ordered new clothes made for themselves. Christine did not have a single cotton chemise left, they had all been shredded or burned or stained with blood. She had several bustled European dresses made, preparing herself for a new life. But she still wore her shalwar kameez when they were alone in the room together. She liked the things that reminded her of Punjab. The nightmare wasn’t Lahore or even the family. The nightmare was Erik and Baba and everything they crushed beneath their rancor. <br/>     He did not need to continue the nightly practice of singing to her or reciting the stories of the great operas. She did not want to hear any more stories of the Opera. They had themselves become the lovers from distant lands. He was not Orphée, or Tristan, or Roméo, or Faust, or Alim, or Gérald. And he was not dead and he was not Death. He was only Erik. And he was still Erik.    <br/>     She confided to him her desire to have a little house by the sea, near to Perros-Guirec, so that she could visit her father’s grave whenever her heart called for it, but not <em>in</em> Perros, so that the people who had known her as a child would learn nothing about her life. They would be M. et Mme. Garnier. And they would be very, very quiet.<br/>“Anything, my angel,” he had said, bringing her hand to his lips. “You shall have anything you want. We shall have a simple, provincial existence.”<br/>     As the ship drew closer to France, it was Christine’s mood that turned sour. The return would not be as warm as she was hoping. The realization crept in slowly that she would not be able to see anyone who knew or loved her before. She would no longer be Christine, but Cécile, without a family or a past. Her desire for home had been specific to a memory of a home that had already burned away. She could not be Christine and be his wife. She could only be Christine for him and Cécile for everyone else. He had taken everything from her, even her name. But it was forgiven, it was done.</p><p>     From Marseille they traveled north via carriage. Now that they had returned to France, they took more care not to be seen. No trains, no walks in parks. She did not know they would stop in Paris until the carriage had driven directly into the heart of the city. He still never told her his plans. She had been leaning her head against the window, watching the rain covered countryside pass by, when farms gave way to factories and she understood. <br/>“Why are we going to the city?”<br/>“I have some business to attend to.”<br/>“No, no, no we cannot. We will be found out. I don’t want to go!”<br/>“Calm, my love. I must see my banker. I must put some things in order. We will not be seen. You need never leave our hotel.”<br/>“Hotel? You wouldn’t rather stay in your own house?” she said, mordantly.<br/>“You mean my house with the hideous, ordinary, bourgeois furniture? No. It has probably been overrun with rats by now. I think you will be far more comfortable in the hotel I have selected.”<br/>     They stayed a week. She did indeed hole up in the hotel, overcome with nostalgia and homesickness for a home that no longer existed. Mama Valerius had died, she knew this without being told. There was no one left here who loved her. Except him.<br/>     He returned to the room one evening gay and bearing gifts.<br/>“This one! Open this one,” he said with manic excitement. He pushed a garment box towards her. Inside was a red dress that she could immediately see had been made out of her red and gold wedding saree.<br/>“You’ve cut up my wedding dress!” she cried.<br/>“No, no. It has only been re-fashioned.”<br/>     She angrily held it up. He could have asked her - she would have said no. As nightmarish as the night had been, it was the only wedding dress she had ever worn. She sighed. She had to admit the work was beautifully done. A simple, modern silhouette, no bustle. The saree had been cut and sewn to fit tightly around a corset. The skirt was full and airy. There was an accompanying white silk chemise. <br/>“It was my own design. You will wear it tonight,” he said, looking through his own new set of clothes.<br/>“Tonight?”<br/>“We are going out.”<br/>“Out? Aren’t you worried we will be seen?”<br/>“I shouldn’t say anything. It is a surprise.”<br/>“I don’t like your surprises.”<br/>     He helped her into the dress and drew a dark cloak around her, hiding all the red and gold. He wanted her to wear her heavy wedding jewelry. She insisted on wearing only the earrings. He put on his dark, new suit and top hat. He wore, of course, a dark leather mask.<br/>     When the carriage took them past the grand entrance of the Opera house she shook her head violently. <br/>“Your cruelty knows no bounds,” she said. “I refuse.” <br/>     The driver brought them around the side to his private entrance. Erik got out and held the door open for her.<br/>“Come now, we do not want to miss the opening act.” He held out his gloved hand to her. “We have quite a walk ahead of us.”<br/>“No!”<br/>     He reached into the carriage and pulled her down into the street by her upper arm. <br/>“I want to attend the Opera with my wife!”<br/>“Go to hell!” she hissed. He pulled her close to him.<br/>“All in due time,” he joked. But her words stung. It had been a long time since she had shown him so much resistance.  <br/>     He led her down and up passageways she had never seen before. He had never brought her to his private box as he had only ever wanted to be in the box when she was on stage. He had not considered how difficult it would be for her to climb the little ladder that would take them up into the hollow column that was his entryway into Box Five. Her skirts caught under her feet as she climbed the rungs. Finally, they reached the top and he opened the little trap door. They tumbled into the dark box. <br/>     There were two chairs arranged side by side, one with a little footstool before it. On the shelf there was the evening program, a bottle of wine with two glasses, and a little vase of flowers - the work of the old concierge. <br/>“Ah, it is so nice to be back,” he said, peering cautiously over the balcony. He reveled in his cleverness. “I wonder if the little ballet girls still think they see me now and again, even though I have been away?” She did not grace him with a response. “I believe the answer is yes as my banker has assured me I still receive my allowance.” He cackled. <br/>     It brought her immense sadness to be at the Opera again. To be so close to the source of so much happiness that she could reach out and touch it with her hand, except that her hand was clutched by her monstrous husband. On the stage itself she imagined she could see the outline of his trap door. Certainly they would have closed it off by now?<br/>“Don’t you worry that we will be seen?” she asked, nodding towards the boxes directly across from them.<br/>“Not as long as we stay behind the line of this shadow. No one will see us. I know these things. Remember who I am, Christine.” <br/>     The opening of Orphée et Eurydice bounded forth from the orchestra. She closed her eyes in agony. <br/> “Let us enjoy the performance. We can laugh as they try to sing with the authenticity of true lovers,” he scoffed. He gave her a glass of wine, and clinked his glass to hers ever so quietly.<br/>      Shepherds and nymphs sang out to her:</p><p>
  <em>Ah! Prends pitié du malheureux Orphée, il soupire, il gémit, il plaint sa destinée.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Oh! Have pity on poor, unhappy Orpheus, sighing, moaning, complaining about her destiny.</em>
</p><p>     By the end of Act I, tears poured down her face. He was agitated. The evening was not going as planned. He had not meant to make her cry. He never meant to make her cry and yet it happened so often. Perhaps it was only the actors on stage making her cry? He reached for her hand and she pulled it away. No, no. It was he who had made his own wife cry.<br/>     Spirits now danced across the stage and through the fields of Elysium. Blissful shadows, beloved shadows, dancing in the shadows of ancient warriors. He leaned closer to her. He ran his long fingers along her bare arm up to the nape of her neck. <br/>“Please stop crying. I cannot stand it when you cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I promise I didn’t. You say I am cruel, but I only wanted to take my wife to the Opera. I only want to make you happy.”<br/>“I know,” she sniffled. “I know you do.” <br/>     He tugged at her upper arm, pulling her into his lap. <br/>“Someone will see us,” she complained.<br/>“Hush, hush.”<br/>     He slid his long arms around her and buried his mask in her hair. Her body settled uncomfortably over his. His hands wandered her, pressed her flesh through the thin silk. She began to move against his caress, taking his hands and guiding them herself. <br/>     He suddenly released his embrace and moved his hands under her. He fumbled with her skirts, pulling at them. As he had said, the dress was by his own design, with that very night in that very place in mind. The back was lined with trap doors cut into the skirts, held together with loose buttons that he could easily snap open along the seam. The chemise had been designed in exactly the same way, allowing him to touch the bare skin of her legs within moments. <br/>“Not here,” she said, her body stiffening as she came to understand his intentions. He ran his fingers under her skirts, over her skin, causing her to shiver from head to foot.<br/>“Precisely here,” he gasped as his hand reached her sex at last. He lightly bit her shoulder as he plunged two fingers into her, finding her slick and warm. He held his fingers there, moving ever so slightly. She had ceased resisting him. Her low murmuring was more beautiful to him than the sound of any song. <br/>     She leaned back into his embrace and whispered into his ear, “I don’t want to live in your darkness anymore. I want to live in the sun.” She then leaned forward, against his fingers.<br/>“You shall have the sun, the moon, the stars. You shall have anything you want.” He made circles over her bud. His other hand wandered the silk over her breasts. He clutched at her with desperate possession. She sat up straighter, placing her hands on the armrests of his chair as she leaned back into his body, as stiff as a queen upon her throne. <br/>“I only want the light. I want a house full of light.” She found his hand and pressed it further in.<br/>“Preparations are being made at this very moment, my angel,” his hand moved frenetically, matching the rhythm of the music that surrounded them, masking their low lover’s sounds. They remained like this for the rest of Act II.<br/>     In Act III, as his hands still caressed her inside and out, they turned their attentions back to the stage. As Orpheus led his beloved out of the Underworld, his refusal to look at her caused Eurydice to cry out:</p><p>
  <em>Le voile de la mort retombe sur mes yeux!</em>
  <br/>
  <em>The veil of death falls over my eyes</em>
</p><p>“I would not have been as reckless as Orpheus,” he said through clenched teeth. “I would not have turned around. I would have trusted you - you always came back to me.”</p><p>
  <em>Mon coeur palpite un trouble secret m'agite</em>
  <br/>
  <em>My heart beats a troubled secret against me</em>
</p><p>“I know you think I am Hades, but does Hades have a voice as enchanting as mine? Could Hades sing the animals to sleep?” </p><p><br/>“You are wrong. You are neither Orpheus nor Hades. You have always been Eurydice, lost in the Underworld.”</p><p>
  <em>Tous mes sens sont saisis d'horreur et je succombe à ma douleur</em>
  <br/>
  <em>All my senses are seized with horror and I succumb to my pain!</em>
</p><p>“Erik is Eurydice?”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>Je frémis, je languis, je frissonne, je tremble, je pâlis</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I shudder, I languish, I shiver, I tremble, I pale</em>
</p><p>“Yes. And I am Orpheus, and I will lead you into the light. I know better than anyone not to turn around and look at you. I know that you will always be right behind me, just as you are now. Always stalking me, always too close. Right behind me. My Eurydice,” she hissed. “<em>Fuck me</em>.”<br/>“Christine!”<br/>“<em>Fuck me</em> Eurydice!” <br/>“Don’t curse, Christine. I don’t like it when you -”<br/>“<em>Fuck me</em>. Isn’t that why we are here?” She leaned back and pulled his mouth to her neck. He burned it. He removed his hand from where it worked inside of her and struggled to pull his hard cock out from under her weight. <br/>“I will be your Eurydice then. I will follow you out of Hell. You, my Orpheus, son of Calliope, let me fuck you, let me, let me, just don’t look back at me, pull me forward, never backwards, don’t look back…” They each had to swallow their cry as he entered her. The audience was enraptured by the tragic love on stage, blind and deaf to the tragic love in Box Five. <br/>     He pushed his legs forward along the floor while she rode along his length. Suddenly, she lifted her weight on the armrests, creating a space between them that he could fill, allowing more friction, more pleasure. It was not an easy position and they each wished they could crash to the floor before it was over. But even Erik feared drawing attention to themselves. He did not actually want to be seen. They remained in the chair and worked within its limitations. </p><p>
  <em>J'ai perdu mon Eurydice, rien n'égale mon malheur</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I have lost my Eurydice, my misfortune has no equal</em>
</p><p>“I would never have looked back at you. I would never have lost you,” she said triumphantly riding him to the finish. Again she had to swallow her cry. With a final thrust he did the same. They did not break from their embrace until the audience burst into tearful applause. They remained together, panting, heartbeats still strong, until they could bear to pull apart.<br/> <br/>“Christine?” he whispered, “If I am Eurydice, and you are Orpheus, who is Hades?”<br/>“Hades is Hades and he is here with us always.”</p><p> </p><p>______________________________________________</p><p>Here is a moving performance of J'ai perdu mon Eurydice that would have been in the background at the end of this chapter.</p><p>Orphée et Eurydice - J'ai perdu mon Eurydice, Juan Diego Flórez, The Royal Opera, UK<br/><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MCOKMuwKkA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MCOKMuwKkA</a></p><p>Links and notes for all the music for this story can be found in Chapter 24.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Any thoughts about this very intense date night?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. The Music Students</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Even in ideal domesticity, Erik menaces. He cannot help it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     In a small village on the Brittany coast, there was once an old house by the sea possessed by a strange couple. They arrived one day by carriage, with their dark hoods and veils and shadows, and after the shrouded groom carried his wife over the threshold, they were not seen or heard from for an entire year. <br/>     He set her feet down on the floor of the foyer. Though she had dreaded the surprise, she was delighted to find the house was small and warm and full of sunlight. It was everything she had imagined since they had left Lahore. He led her through the rooms as if he had known all along what the house would look like, though he had never laid eyes on it before making the purchase through his banker. They wandered from the small living room with its stone hearth to the little kitchen with its root cellar. Down a long, sunny hallway were the two bedrooms, each looking out onto the sea. <br/>     They found that the former owners had left their old furniture behind.The scene was set as if they had been there only the day before. There were even plates in the cupboard and a string of drying herbs strung up across the kitchen ceiling. <br/>“I shall order you new furniture, my love, the very finest. Nothing hideous or ordinary.”<br/>“Let us keep it. I rather like this simple style. It looks like a happy family once lived here and I wish the same for us.”<br/>     The very first evening he made a fire for them and they drank a bottle of wine side by side, a small dribble escaping through his left cheek. She sat on the sofa with her feet tucked underneath her skirts, watching the firelight dance upon his gaunt visage. The light did not dance in his eyes, which glowed by their own sinister flame. He was so ugly, and yet. And yet. When the bottle was empty he rose and held out his hand. “Should we stroll around the grounds?”<br/>“What grounds?”<br/>     He gestured towards the dark beach. “Our grounds.”<br/>“It is so dark out, we shall stumble and fall.”<br/>“You forget how well I see in the dark. Come.”<br/>     They climbed over the dunes and down onto the beach. Christine felt lightheaded and giddy. They stared up at that great expanse of the night sky and felt the earth pull them backwards into the sand. They lay very quietly observing the stars slowly emerge out of the blackness. To her relief he did not try to teach her anything, but merely held out his hand to her. She clasped it to her chest.<br/>“I am reminded of the Sheesh Mahal,” she said.<br/>“The Sheesh Mahal was built to remind you of <em>real</em> stars.”<br/>“Build me a room like that. A little room with a thousand tiny mirrors in the ceiling so that if I light a single candle I will feel like I am sleeping under the stars. Would you do that for me?”<br/>     He sighed and turned his head in the sand to face her..“I have waited so long to build you something magnificent, for you to let me take care of you, to let me make you happy. Have I made you very happy, Christine?”<br/>“Very happy. We shall be very happy in this place.”<br/>     He kissed her hand and sighed. “I am reminded of another night, under another set of stars, far, far away from here. Do you remember?”<br/>“I remember. For what reason do you think I desire a ceiling of stars over our bed? Ah! Erik, not here. Someone will see us. Not here! Ah!”<br/>“There is no one. No one will see us, my love.”</p><p>     In the morning there was a knock at their door. They both felt a flash of panic. But what could be more ordinary than to open a front door to a friendly knock? As her hand moved towards the handle, he stopped her.<br/>“Are you ready to meet them? Do you even know who you will be? Christine or Cécile?”<br/>“Cécile, of course.”<br/>“And why have you come here, Cécile? Where are you from? Really, you do not have an accent from there. Why doesn’t your husband come out as well? Where is he? Why is he so ugly? Are you ready for these questions, my love? It will not be like the harmless babble you exchanged with the other passengers on the ship, who you knew you would never see again. These villagers will watch you, they could be the ones to watch you grow old. You should consider carefully what you tell them. You should prepare Cécile Garnier with a past and plausible excuses for her strange present. A story that is not the truth, but close enough to the truth that you do not confuse your pretty head. This is not to be taken lightly, Christine.”<br/>     There was another knock. The stranger was just on the other side, so close Christine could hear his breath through the door. To her relief she soon heard a sigh and retreating footsteps. <br/>“And you? Will you be Erik Garnier? What will your story be?”<br/>“Erik will never go to the village.”<br/>     The next morning Christine dressed herself in a pretty new frock with a matching bonnet and prepared to go into the village for the first time. But again, as her hand reached for the handle, he stopped her. He threw his voice into her ear as she stood at the door.<br/>“Come back to bed,” it said. <br/>“I only want to go explore our new home.”<br/>“This is our home. Everything you could ever need is right here inside.”<br/>“I meant the village. We need food.”<br/>“It has all been arranged Christine,” he caught up with his voice and moved to place his arms around her. “It will all be delivered to us. You need not bother with going to the market or the shops.” He moved his hands up, through her hair. “Do not leave me, my love.”<br/>“I am not leaving you - ah! - I just want to go out for a little while.” She leaned into him.<br/>“Stay with me here,” he said, already lifting her feet from the floor and carrying her down the hall towards the bed, far away from the door.<br/>     And so it happened every time she tried to leave. A month went by and she had still not left the house, except to take nighttime walks with him along the water’s edge behind their house. He took up the practice of night swimming, believing the salt water would benefit his skin. She would sit in the sand and watch him silently. He had bewitched her. Even after she discovered the enchantment, she did not wish to leave him. If he was afraid of being alone, she was afraid of facing strangers. <br/>     It would take time to construct a story for Cécile. She realized that the extraordinary journey they had just completed could not be a part of that story. No one in the village could ever know that she had seen the wonders of the world. It was too strange; there was no real explanation for it other than Erik’s madness. <br/>     So began their eremitic year in the house by the sea, of languid daylight love-making, and fervent nighttime delights. They needed no one else.  <br/>    <span>  He ordered books and new clothes for her. Wine for himself.</span> He ordered her a piano and a weekly delivery of flowers with which she decorated the foyer. He cleaned out the root cellar and made a small workshop for himself where he amassed a small collection of mirrors - with no malicious intent! For months, he spent hours cutting glass tile and drafting designs for her room. While they slept in one bedroom, he worked alone in the other, spreading the ceiling with plaster and laying each tile with the care of the master artist that he was. She was not allowed inside.<br/>     When at last the ceiling was complete, he lit up the room with candles and led her inside, blindfolded. He could scarcely contain his excitement as he laid her down onto the bed and lifted the silk scarf from her eyes. It was a work of love - of obsession, certainly - but also love. He loved her. He would kill or die for her, but she much preferred he create art for her instead. The hundreds of hand-cut mirror disks reflected the candlelight in singular splendor. <br/>“My angel! it is sublime,” she wept. “You have lifted me up to the heavens!”</p><p>     But still, he did not allow her to leave. Once, she broke free from his beguilement for enough time to run halfway down the road towards the village. Certainly he would not follow her, she thought. But she was wrong. He came up behind her with the swiftness of an animal. He took her by the arm and turned her back towards the house. He refused to hear her protests.<br/>     One evening, he sat by the fire reading, while Christine, in sleepy tenderness, sat on the floor before him. She rested her head on his knee as he dazedly ran his sinuous fingers through her loose hair. <br/>“My angel,” she said softly. <br/>“What is it my love?” he said, closing his book.<br/>“Did you really leave my sickbed to go stag hunting?”<br/>“Yes,” he said in a low voice.<br/>“But when you returned, I saw no stag or skin or antlers. Were none of you able to find a stag?”<br/>     His knee shifted from under her head. “You should not ask questions when the answers will not please you.”<br/>“I ask because you left me behind when I was quite ill. You left me with only strangers to take care of me. Sanaa told me it was because Baba had ordered it. But I know you and you would never have left me if you had not had your own reasons. Look at you now - you, who will not let me out of his sight. What was so important that you could leave me while I lay dying?”<br/>“You were not dying, Christine. I did not leave your side until it was certain you would live.” <br/>     Tears began to stream down her face, but he could not see them as she faced the fire.<br/>“I opened my eyes and you were all I wanted. I had such awful nightmares! And you were not there.”<br/>“I sang such sweet music to you, my love. I was there.”<br/>“How could you leave me then? And you will not let me take a walk down a country lane today? You must let me out, Erik. I am lonely.”<br/>“How can you be lonely when you have me? Am I not enough?”<br/>“Do you mean to keep me inside forever? It isn’t natural. You must let me out. You must at least let me visit my father’s grave.”<br/>“I will take you to visit him tomorrow. We shall rent a carriage to take us over to Perros. It can be done in a single night.”<br/>“Let me go alone, in the daylight.”<br/>“Quiet. I will take you there myself. I will bring my violin.”<br/> <br/>     After an emotionally exhausting visit to Perros, Christine’s demands only increased. <br/>“You cannot tell me I cannot go to mass! Then you are keeping me from God and you cannot do that. I haven’t been to confession or taken the sacrament since I married you. It is wrong for you to keep me from God, Erik. It is wrong!”<br/>     He reluctantly conceded defeat. When the next Sunday arrived, she rose out of their bed and dressed herself in a pretty pink dress and matching coat. She tied on her bonnet, with a crown of silk roses, watching him watch her through the mirror of her vanity. He wanted to tell her not to go. It hurt him to watch her prepare to leave.<br/>“Pray for me,” he said, to her surprise.<br/>“I - I will, my angel. I always do.”</p><p>     Without her knowing it, he ordered himself the parts of a small organ, which he assembled in his converted root cellar. When filled with music, the cool and humid room brought him a painful nostalgia, which he fully embraced along with his self-pity. She returned one day to hear him playing. She stood at the top of the stairs that led down into his den and listened. The music evoked in her the complete range of human emotion. She was unsure if this music was healthy for him or her. She learned he had begun to compose again.<br/>     He was not allowed to play while her music students were in the house.</p><p>     How she loved them and their youth, their fresh faces. It did not matter to her that they had no musical talent or that she knew they did not practice at home as she instructed them to do. Most of them ended their lessons by offering her a sweet embrace around her neck or legs. Their affection touched her deeply. They gave life to Cécile, who would otherwise be a shapeless idea of a woman.<br/>     They were a privilege hard won. He hated the very idea of them.<br/>“I wish to share my talents with the children. The village has no music teacher.”<br/>“You mean the talents I imparted to you?”<br/>“You forget that I studied at the Conservatoire long before I met you. I have my own talent - I am certainly qualified to teach piano and voice.”<br/>“I do not want strangers in our house.”<br/>“They are just children. You won’t even have to see them. We would stay at the piano in the foyer. You could go hide in your hovel.”<br/>     He believed she taught music to torment him. The clumsy scales, the absence of rhythm, the lack of practice or respect for the instrument. It indeed drove him underground.</p><p>     When she was younger, she had always imagined that she would one day be a mother. But since her marriage to Erik, she had pushed such thoughts from her mind. There were times, when watching Sanaa’s young cousins run through the courtyard, that she felt the pull of fertility. But Erik himself did not spark this yearning in her. Ill-tempered and morbid, she suspected he would not be a good father. <br/>     Her students brought her joy and by loving them, the idea was seeded in her mind that a child of her own might provide her a buffer against loneliness. No matter how mad or raving or lost was her Erik, she would always have someone else to love. Someone who would love her in that unlimited way that children love their mothers, independent of the madness of their fathers.</p><p>     From the very first night under the stars, by that little stream somewhere in the mountains of Persia, he had spilled his seed on her belly, or her back, or her legs. At first she had not understood - for in those early days she understood very little. The time she had the courage to ask why he did this, he explained that it could be very dangerous for her to be with child while they traveled. There were times when his efforts failed and the viscous liquid would slide down her legs throughout the day after. But he was successful in keeping her from falling pregnant. Now that they were no longer traveling, he continued this practice. She was too timid to tell him her new desires. If he hated her students so much, might he hate a demanding infant even more? <br/>     Candlelight caused the stars on the ceiling to flicker gold and silver. Her arms laced around his neck as he pushed a string of poetic nonsense into her ear. He was near his climax. She found it impossible to talk to him about these things, but in his throes she moved her hands down between them and clenched his hips to her. He was too vulnerable to resist. He filled her up.<br/>“Christine, why? Don’t you know better?”<br/>     Even then she found she could not be honest about her intentions. When it happened again, he asked in disgust, “Why do you do this? Do you <em>want</em> my demon child?”<br/>“I do, Erik.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Stay safe everyone! Wear a mask when protesting.</p><p>Please, please, please leave feedback. It helps me so much to know what has worked - and what hasn't. Have you seen any plot holes that you want threaded up before the end?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. P. accreta</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Medical horror and pints and pints of blood.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> <em>“Would she not prefer to espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?”</em></p><p>    It was just as he had said; one could get used to anything. She had even managed to overcome his noxious scent. It had changed over time, from the curse of rotting flesh to something no more offensive than the decay of a damp forest floor. But her current condition heightened all senses, undoing all the progress she had made. She first suspected she was pregnant when he emerged one day from his workshop smelling of earth and sweat and she immediately vomited into her own hands. <br/>
     Any innocuous thing could make her retch; the wilting flowers in the foyer, the glare of the sun streaming in through the closed curtains, the high whine of his organ. She could never say it, because she loved him, but his proximity to her was the fiercest provocation for incessant vomiting - which only drew him nearer as he attempted to comfort her, obliviously pulling her into his embrace. She would douse her clothes in rosewater, dig her nose into lemon halves, brew ginger tea. For four months she vomited no less than six times a day.<br/>
    When finally the veil of nausea began to lift, she felt the first flutter of bird wings on the inside of her womb. Her dresses became tight across her belly. She began to show and modesty compelled her to cancel her students’ lessons. When their mothers found out why, they crowded her foyer bearing cakes and advice. Erik cowered downstairs.<br/>
     Mme. Lemieux insisted she see Dr. Louis Bisset as soon as possible and even accompanied Christine to the appointment herself. <br/>
“You must be prepared, Cécile. I worry about you, all alone, so far from the village.”<br/>
“But I am not alone.”<br/>
“No, of course not, my dear. I meant no offense. I meant only that you have no women in your family to come and help you."<br/>
    She spent her days lounging on the sofa in her shalwar kameez, a little bucket by her side, reading before the fire, one pillow at her head, another propping up the weight of her middle. He would bring her tea, cover her with a blanket, kneel before her, rest his head in her shadow, breathe in her breath.<br/>
"Oh!" She pulled his hand to her. "My love, feel it - that was a foot!" At the invitation, he spread his long, reverent fingers over her belly. <br/>
    She accompanied him each evening to the beach. She found that the salt air numbed her senses to a tolerable level. She would sit on a blanket, her legs stretched out before her. She would press lightly against the baby's foot as it dragged across her insides. Sometimes she would splash her face to clear out her sinuses in the saltwater. <br/>
     She watched him swim out into the dark water, mildly worried about the height of the waves, the pull of the current against him. <br/>
     He looked back at her, so lovely on the sand with her half-swollen belly before her, pushing her breasts up to her clavicles. She treated the beach as an extension of their garden, without fear of being seen by others. She wore a green and gold brocade coat over an immodestly transparent chemise. <br/>
     He turned and fixed his stare at some point between the half-lit water and the horizon. The waves crashed over his spindly, naked legs. His dark thoughts wandered the possibilities that her condition entailed. Erik thought he would never set foot in the village, but the village would soon invade his home. The doctor would come and there would be nothing they could hide from him. He would know her body in ways that even her husband did not. And then there were the ways her body could betray her, the many countless ways it could all go wrong. He -<br/>
    Her cold and wet arms were wrapped around him, her belly twitching against his back. His palms turned out in surprise. What was this embrace, so unprovoked, so undeserved? <br/>
“It is too rough for you out here,” he shouted over the crash of the water, clasping her hands against his sunken chest.<br/>
     He closed his eyes. He did not deserve this fleeting happiness. And he knew it must be fleeting; only his pain was eternal. She seemed to have truly forgiven him everything, all that he had done to her, all that he had taken from her. He turned his head to look back at her as she hid behind him, against the waves, burying her wet face into his shoulder blades.<br/>
     In the corner of his eye he saw it, a long dark shadow slithering down the beach towards them. <br/>
“It is too cold for you out here. I do not want you to fall ill. Come.”<br/>
     What he did not know was that she saw the shadow too. They were well acquainted. </p><p>     Snow fell like a blessing in the night. Dr. Bisset had been forewarned by his patient about the disconcerting figure now filling his doorframe.<br/>
“My wife’s time has come,” the masked man said solemnly, a flicker of panic behind his peculiar eyes. Bisset was grateful Mme. Garnier had the foresight to give him such a warning, for if she had not, he would surely have closed the door and barricaded himself against this harbinger of malice. Instead, he pulled his nerves together. For the young woman’s sake.<br/>
“Of course, M. Garnier. Let me grab my coat and my bag.” He paused. The snowdrift was thick and it appeared the man had come on foot. “We will take my carriage. We must fetch Nurse Naud along the way.”<br/>
     Nurse Naud had not been forewarned. She recoiled at the sight and smell of him as she first entered the carriage. Bisset pushed her back into it and quickly closed the door behind them. <br/>
     Bisset regarded this strange man before him. It was not the mask that was strange. A man might wear a mask for many reasons. He was tempted to ask if he had perhaps been injured in military service, and then they could stand on common ground. But no, it was not the mask. It was the haunted eyes behind the mask which appeared to burn through the darkness. He pitied Mme. Garnier and her unnatural devotion to her ugly husband. Such a beautiful and talented young woman could surely have done better for herself.</p><p>     When they arrived at the house, they found Christine standing up against the bedpost, her head down in concentration. Both doctor and nurse noticed the strange ceiling that sparkled over her. It really was a house of mysteries. <br/>
     She let out a shrill scream as a contraction rippled through her. Erik grimaced and covered his ears. The nurse slipped on her white apron and quickly moved past him. She reached out and clenched the fat above Christine’s hips. <br/>
“You can be as loud as you want, Cécile, but keep your voice low and calm,” she whispered. She kneaded her thumbs into the flesh, easing the sharp pain by a few degrees. <br/>
     Though Christine wished to remain on her feet, the doctor insisted she lay down.<br/>
“I must do a quick exam, to see how far along you might be.” He rolled up the white sleeve of his shirt. He turned to Erik and said, “M. Garnier, most husbands prefer to wait outside. I assure you, she is in very good hands now.”<br/>
     But Erik did not hear the man. His gaze was fixed behind the doctor, where a shrouded figure rolled up his own black sleeve. As Bisset inserted his fingers to gauge her dilation, the figure inserted his own finger bones to cast his curse.<br/>
     Erik covered his black eyes. <br/>
“M. Garnier? Really, I find that most husbands do not fare well in the delivery room. I believe you would be much more comfortable outside.”<br/>
     The figure turned to Erik and though his face was obscured, Erik knew he was grinning. As the doctor’s fingers measured her cervix, her eyes flew open in terror. It was then that Erik knew she could see it too. He fell to his knees and grabbed her hand. How he wished he could lift her up and carry her away from this terror, but it would follow her wherever he might take her. The terror was within her and could only be expelled along with this demon child he had put in her. “Forgive me!” he groaned into her hand. <br/>
“You are progressing well,” Bisset announced, cleaning off his fingers in the basin. The figure obscenely licked his own.<br/>
    Christine rolled herself off the bed and back into the standing position she found more comfortable. “When will it end? This pain is unbearable!” she screamed at Bisset.<br/>
“I am afraid it is perfectly normal to be the worst pain you have ever experienced in all your life. That is what many women have told me over the years. There is nothing as exquisite as the pain of labor. But I assure you that one day all the pain will fade from your memory. One day you will even want another.”<br/>
     She thought the doctor mad to suggest she would ever want to deliver another child. The nurse, having given birth to four children of her own, shook her head quietly.<br/>
“He is a good doctor, but that is nonsense,” she said, touching Christine's cheek. “He is right that one day you will not be able to remember exactly <em>how</em> this hurt you. But you will never forget that it <em>did</em>.” The nurse’s eyes darted across the room at the door. “Has he hurt you very badly, child?” she whispered urgently.<br/>
“He would never hurt me.” <br/>
     She couldn’t think about the past. She felt that her hips were being torn apart like the wings of a bird pulled from the breast. She cried out, funneling the scream from high to low. She felt the power of this unused end of her voice and let out an indignant growl. How dare this cramping pain press down upon her! She tried to use the vicious new sound against the dark figure sitting in the corner of the room. He cackled. <br/>
     The shadows in the room waxed and waned, the sun rose and set again. The snow piled up outside. Bisset fell asleep on the sofa. Erik sat in the corner of the kitchen, his head in his hands. She labored in endless, excruciating agony. <br/>
     Near dawn the next day, the noises inside the room shifted in intensity. The rhythm of the contractions unraveled and some other force took hold. Her body was no longer her own. The nurse rushed into the kitchen, “Dr. Bisset, she is pushing. You should come now.” <br/>
“M. Garnier, if you would please stay here. Or even go for a walk out in the snow. It shouldn’t be too long.”<br/>
       Despite that the doctor continuously told her to return to the bed, she remained standing against the bedpost, dropping to her knees and climbing back up again. There was no comfort in any position, but she could not understand how to labor lying supine. When the doctor commanded her to the bed a final time, she overwhelmed him with wild, exhausted abuse.  <br/>
“Better to let her be where she wants to be,” the nurse said. <br/>
      Her wailing brought Erik back to the room and despite the protestations of both the doctor and nurse, he would not leave again. He stood too close to her, powerless to help her. He could not bear to watch her suffer, neither could he look away. If only he could take the mantle of this pain upon himself, he would surely have done so. He offered his hands and she crushed them in her vise-grip. She let out one more deep, primal growl. When the child finally did come, he was awash in her blood and water.<br/>
     She trembled on the floor, clutching the infant to her chest. Erik and the nurse guided her to the bed by her elbows. They laid her down as she settled the creature over her chest. The two were still connected by the throbbing blue cord. <br/>
“She is precious, Erik! My angel, look at her!” Christine shook with adrenaline. <br/>
     He knelt beside his wife, grasping her arm, burying his head into her shivering shoulder.<br/>
“I am afraid to see, Christine,” he confessed, pressing his eyes closed.<br/>
“Look at her,” his wife insisted, pulling his face upwards by his jaw. He opened his eyes and beheld his demon child; her tuft of black hair, her dark, otherworldly eyes opened wide, her complete and intact nose. She was, of course, not a demon child at all. He wept.<br/>
     The nurse lifted the baby from her mother’s arms and quickly swaddled her, for she believed the cold was the greatest threat to any newborn.<br/>
“Please, Monsieur,” she said, offering the child for Erik to hold. “I have more work to do. Keep her warm.”<br/>
     Bisset cut the rubbery cord. The nurse turned to Christine and preemptively apologized. She placed her hands over the deflated womb and dug her fingers into the flesh. Christine cried out in total indignation. Erik shook in fear for her, clutching the child to his chest.<br/>
“But why do you do this?” she demanded to know. <br/>
“For the afterbirth. Now, give one more push.”<br/>
     And then she gave birth a second time. The dark and angry organ slid out between her legs, along with a gush of blood. <br/>
“There my child, you have done so well. Now you must rest.” <br/>
     The nurse took it all away and placed it on a table.<br/>
     Christine reached out to Erik. She wanted the child back already. She lifted the mewing creature to her breast.<br/>
     In all this time, no one had minded the figure that sat in the corner. He observed the scene with amusement; the relieved parents, the relaxed doctor. He rose and walked towards the bed. He slipped unseen into the neglected space between her legs where a continuous trickle of blood painted a bright red blossom onto the sheet below her. He raised his hand and formed a fist of bones. He pulled at the air. Blood gushed forth and poured onto the floor. The figure knelt before her and drank directly from the source.<br/>
     The nurse unfolded the placenta under the lantern light. She opened the curtain a little, to let in the morning sun. Her fingers traced the web of veins. Something was wrong. Pieces were missing. <br/>
“Dr. Bisset!”<br/>
     Christine’s eyes rolled into her head. She lost all her pretty coloring. In just moments blood was everywhere, drenching the entire room, filling it with the smell of rust. Erik took the child back from her arms before she fainted and let go. <br/>
“Christine!” he howled in his preternatural voice. “Oh no, no, no!” <br/>
     The doctor and nurse drew back in fear, holding their ears.<br/>
“Do not dare let her die!”<br/>
“We will not lose her,” the nurse swore to him.<br/>
“I will raze this village to the ground if she should die! I will tear flesh from bones. I will drag you all to hell with me and you two should be the first in line!”  <br/>
“Monsieur! Dare you lay a curse on us over your wife’s sick bed? While holding your daughter in your arms?” Nurse Naud barked boldly. Bisset merely cowered in fear. “Calm yourself. You must leave now. Let us do our work.” She softened her voice and met his frightful frightened eyes. “Please, sir. You must trust us. We <em>love</em> her.” <br/>
     It had never occurred to him before that anyone else could love her.<br/>
     He took the swaddled child into the other bedroom. He laid down on the bed and curled himself around her. How could he keep her warm when even his tears were cold? <br/>
     His mind wandered its greatest depths. His poor Christine! He had wanted to fill her with his seed, not sow her womb with death. Tears and snot poured out from under his mask, unhindered by a proper nose. He removed it just so that he could breathe. He was grateful the child was asleep, so that she might not be frightened of her own father’s face. His poor child, who might never know her mother.<br/>
“God help her! She is the sun. There is no light without her. I am lost. We are lost!” <br/>
     He replaced his mask and banged on the door.<br/>
“Let me in.”<br/>
“Go away Monsieur! Let us do our work,” the nurse said.<br/>
“Let me be close to her,” he pleaded. “Let the child be close to her, while it is still possible. Please!” <br/>
     The nurse was moved. She slowly opened the door, against Bisset’s wishes. <br/>
“You must sit over there in the corner. Do not get in the way.” <br/>
     Bisset’s arm was buried up to the elbow. He scraped the lining of the womb with his fingers, pulling out pieces of the retained afterbirth. The shrouded figure loitered over him, feasting on the gelatinous placental tissues. Bisset stuffed her core with gauze and it was instantly eaten through with blood. Blood streamed down the doctor’s arms, the red stain climbing up his shirtsleeve. Blood and uterine lining ran down the figure’s face, red staining his black robes.<br/>
   The figure turned to Erik and revealed his true face. Death, who had been Erik’s constant lifetime companion, now sat across the bed from his wife, taunting him. Death held his wife’s cold hand now. He kissed it. Death lowered himself onto her and began to caress her breasts. Death straddled her chest and tried to put his thing in her sleeping mouth. Had she been honest when she said Death was the better lover? Had she always been the Bride of Death and never truly Erik’s?<br/>
     Death leaned forward and whispered into her ear. Her head angrily whipped away from his blood covered mouth.<br/>
"No!" She cried. "I don't want to be any of them. I want to live!"<br/>
     Erik threw himself onto her body with a sob.<br/>
“Monsieur, please. Go and fetch us snow.” The nurse took the child from his arms. “The doctor says to fetch snow.”<br/>
     He stumbled out into the snow-covered garden. He filled her laundry basket full. They allowed him to lift her into the bath himself, and to pour the snow over her body, to pack it waist-deep around her. Her body rocked with chills, her lips turned blue. The snow turned red as it melted.<br/>
     A memory appeared in his mind’s eye from among all the bodies, all the souls, all the various acts he had committed over the years. He recalled a certain body floating in a Turkish bath, the veins open, the water warm and steaming. <br/>
“Are you a man of science, M. Garnier?” Bisset asked him at the side of the bath. “Do you have any understanding of human anatomy?”<br/>
“I am a simple musician.”<br/>
“Your wife has lost too much blood. With your consent, we could try a transfusion.”<br/>
“Do everything to save her. I cannot live without her,” he fell into a new round of sobs. He turned away from the doctor and again removed his mask. He could not breath for all the tears caught between the leather and his skin. He held his face in his hands.<br/>
     Bisset could not help but notice the large, open gash in the man’s cheek.<br/>
“Monsieur, your wife is beloved in this village. I assure you, we are with you. We will do everything in our power. We all pray for her now.”<br/>
     Erik took a deep sigh and replaced his mask. He lifted her from the bath and laid her gently on the bed. The nurse pulled a blanket over her. Though blood still leaked from her body, the gushing had been stymied. Bisset pulled out his apparatus of tubes and syringes. <br/>
“Please, roll up your sleeve.”<br/>
“Me?”<br/>
“Yes, of course.”<br/>
“I fear my blood would only harm her more.”<br/>
“There is no time for this nonsense. I assure you, it will hurt very little compared to what you have just witnessed her suffer.”<br/>
     Erik held out his wrist. “Touch it. My blood is cold. The blood of this wretched body could never save her. Please, let it be yours. Or even hers,” he said, glancing at the nurse. The doctor reached out and touched the bony wrist. <br/>
“You are cold because you have been out in the snow. I cannot perform the act on myself. And Nurse Naud, she is just a woman, prone to fainting. Give your wife your own blood. A man’s blood is always stronger. We must do it now, there is no time to discuss it further.”<br/>
     Fearfully, Erik rolled up his sleeve, exposing his corpse-arm to the two strangers. Now they would really know what he was. Bisset found the vein and pierced the unresisting flesh. The vessel filled with Erik’s dark blood. In turn he pierced Christine’s arm and they were joined in that way for some time, their pulses gradually aligning as he filled her up. <br/>
     The doctor, the nurse, and even the broken husband all hung their heads in prayer as they waited for the tide to change. The baby mewed softly. She was hungry.<br/>
      The sun set again. Christine’s breathing was weak, her pulse feeble. The nurse held the child as Erik knelt by her bed, pressing his face against her hand. How dim the world would be without her, and how much brighter it would have been without him! Why could he not take her place? He would do anything to take her place. He had never felt so powerless. She had never been in danger that was not of his own doing and under his total control. But he had no control here. He once thought he had dominion over her body, that with the mere sound of his voice or touch of his hand he could command all her pleasure and pain. He once delighted in the fear he evoked in others. If he looked like Death then he would walk with Death and he would do Death’s work. But he knew now that he had only ever been a pawn of Death. This was his punishment for his illusion of power. <br/>
     A single candle illuminated the ceiling of stars. The nurse looked up from the child in her arms at her surreal surroundings. But who were these strange people? Everyone knew Cécile, who had brought music back to the village church. Cécile, their patron saint of music, who loved their children, who blessed them with her  smile. But who was Cécile, married to this miserable creature? Who was Cécile, mistress of this strange house?<br/>
     Suddenly, the man began to sing. Softly, mournfully. The nurse almost stopped him, thinking the sound so disturbing it might push the young woman’s soul further from earth. But it turned sweet, enchanting, bewitching. The nurse herself began to weep. No one had ever loved her enough to make music like this. Every woman deserved to be loved like this. It was music so beguiling as to make her envy a dying woman. <br/>
      Death’s mood finally soured. He covered his ears. In one last expression of his vulgar desire, he kissed Christine’s blue mouth. For a second time he conceded defeat. As he slipped out the door, he assured Erik that he would be back again for her one day.<br/>
     Christine opened her eyes.<br/>
“My angel, you’ve come back to me!” he cried. Again, he had to turn and remove his mask or he would choke on his own fluids.<br/>
“Where is she? Where is my child?” <br/>
     Christine gasped at the pain of the child’s mouth closing over her swollen nipple. But it was an exquisite pain. The sweetest.<br/>
“What will you name her?” the nurse asked.<br/>
“Aurelie.” The nurse looked at the child’s dark hair and thought it a strange choice. “She was born at dawn. And she is the light of my eyes.”<br/>
     <br/>
     A few weeks later, Bisset made a visit to Mme. Garnier’s home. He was quite pleased with the progress she had made, though she was still so weak she needed help leaving the bed. Nurse Naud sent over her niece, Anaïs, to help with the household. The child was nursing well and getting fat. The shadow of death had departed the strange little family.<br/>
     On his way out, he found M. Garnier waiting for him at the door. To his surprise, the man held out a gloved hand. He shook it, hesitantly.<br/>
“Thank you,” he said, as if he had never said it to anyone before.<br/>
“She is doing quite well. She is very strong.” <br/>
     The strange man could only nod his head.<br/>
“M. Garnier, may I ask you a question? I couldn’t help but to see that you have an injury that looks to have never been properly treated. Would you mind if I took a look at it?”<br/>
“No.”<br/>
“I believe I could help you.”<br/>
“No. There is no curing it. My skin does not heal well.”<br/>
“I am very skilled with the needle. I believe that with time and perhaps some topicals the skin could close up.”<br/>
     Perhaps, as it seemed he would really be doing the doctor a favor, it would not be so malicious to allow the man to see the horror of his face. Erik consented.<br/>
     He sat down as the doctor took out his needle and thread and began to tell a long story about stitching up a young man who had been wounded by the Prussians years before. The story unwound in his mouth as he worked, until he could no longer speak at all. The skin was so brittle that the thread cut right through it. Like sewing together two pieces of stale bread. <br/>
     <br/>
     Bisset lay awake in his bed in his home in the village. His heart was troubled. He felt tremendous relief at Mme. Garnier’s recovery and deep apprehension about her marriage. M. Garnier’s threats to the village had come so naturally. It seemed that not only had he made such threats before, but that he had made good on them. And he had never seen such a deformity: skin that disintegrated before his very eyes. A living corpse. How could she have married him? How could she lay next to him at night? How could she have let him put a child in her? But he could not deny that the man loved his wife. That much was certain. <br/>
     In the early hours of that same morning, the doctor, who had never fallen asleep, heard music. Softly at first, then urgent, then violent. It was coming from the church. Someone was playing the organ. He and his wife went to the window. With time the music changed and what had been a burning, brutal cacophony transformed into a more reverent, angelic melody. <br/>
“Who could it be?” his wife whispered. “Certainly not Mme. Garnier?”<br/>
“Mme. Garnier can barely walk. Certainly not.”<br/>
“But who then?”<br/>
     Mme. Bisset closed her eyes and sighed. She was moved. When she opened them again, her eyes were glassy with tears.<br/>
“It is so beautiful. The music of angels.”<br/>
     Bisset was greatly disturbed to find his wife so enchanted. He did not like it when she cried.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>While I work in public health, I am not a doctor. I did discuss the order of events with a friend who is an ob/gyn. She did not read the final story because my friends aren’t allowed to read my stories. I wanted this story to be possible, not necessarily probable. A woman would probably die in these circumstances, but it is possible she could live with these interventions. My friend had a hard time even imagining this medical case because today this complication would certainly result in a c-section.</p><p>There were several influences on this chapter. Mary Shelley’s obstetric history is far more horrifying to me than anything she wrote in Frankenstein. She was saved from a hemorrhage when her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, placed her in an ice bath (or sat her upon a block of ice, depending on the source). </p><p>Though blood transfusions did not have a high success rate in the 1880’s (blood types were not understood until around 1900), the practice was available. Medical illustrations of blood transfusions from this time very often depict a husband donating to a wife after birth. While this may seem romantic, it is also steeped in gender norms of the day. Women were not seen as potential donors, only as potential recipients. </p><p>Placental retention is still a major cause of maternal mortality. Always have your physician/midwife show you/your partner/your doula the placenta and confirm it is intact. If any of it is left inside it can cause hemorrhaging. This happens even in countries that fancy themselves developed.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Galette des rois</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Erik and Christine must learn to navigate what it means to be M. et Mme. Garnier.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the second-to-last chapter, the story is almost done. Let me know what you think about where this is going! I really value all the feedback it's received so far. Thank you so much for reading and letting me know your thoughts. Bisoux</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  The day after Aurelie’s birth, Anaïs Naud was sent by her aunt to assist Mme. Garnier. She held up her fist to the door, but hesitated. Would he remember her face? She remembered covering herself with her hands, to block him from her sight. It had been almost two years ago that she had seen him on the beach. Certainly, he could not remember. She gave a weak knock at the door. <br/>
“You,” he said in disgust. <br/>
“My aunt sent me. She said Mme. Garnier would need help. I - I can help her.”<br/>
“We can manage ourselves,” he said, moving to close the door. <br/>
“My - my aunt said to give you this,” she said, holding out an envelope. He took out the letter and read it out loud to her in a voice eerily close to her aunt’s true voice.</p><p>
  <em>M. Garnier, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please allow my niece, Anaïs Naud, to assist Mme. Garnier. She is the oldest of seven children and experienced in the care of infants. Respectfully, she is more experienced than you. Your wife must rest and must not be expected to perform any household work until she is fully recovered. Please do not let your pride refuse this offer, made out of friendship and deep affection for your wife.</em><br/>
<em>We will discuss my niece’s payment at a later date. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sincerely,</em><br/>
<em>Mme. Marie Naud</em>
</p><p>“Better you than someone else, I suppose. You shouldn’t be tempted to spy as you have already seen all of me.”<br/>
“No Monsieur. I would never spy.”<br/>
“No, you wouldn’t want to see that again,” he said slyly. He opened the door wider and allowed her to step in. </p><p>     Christine had eyes only for Aurelie. She lay on her side, gazing at the precious creature as she latched onto the nipple. No one had told Christine it would hurt so much to nurse. How it burned! She felt every suckle deep in her womb as it tugged itself back into place. Every time she sat up she felt blood rush out of her. But a normal amount of blood, Dr. Bisset had reassured her. Aurelie had been paid for with pain and she was worth every red ounce of it. <br/>
     There were nights when she would awake to nurse Aurelie and find him sitting fully erect next to them in the bed, watching over them with his glowing eyes. He would silently run his fingers through her hair. She loved him too much to tell him to stop touching her while Aurelie touched her. Between the two of them she would lose her sense of self if they each demanded too much from her body at once. She might gently brush his hand aside and ask for a song instead. Or she might bear it, only to save his feelings.<br/>
     There were mornings when she would open her eyes to find Aurelie gone from her side. She would look up from her pillow to find Erik resting in a chair beside the bed with the swaddled child asleep on his chest. He held her as if she were made of porcelain. He ran his bones over the fine black hair on the crown of her head. And he thought she would be a demon child, Christine thought tartly. What could he have meant by that? Erik and his strange ideas. She reached out from the bed and laid her hand on his knee.  <br/>
“I believe that when I was a child, when I still had hair, it was dark like this,” he said in a low and far away voice. “Perhaps, if God had finished my nose in my mother’s womb it would have been perfect like hers.”</p><p>     Anaïs was a treasure. She cooked and cleaned and allowed Christine to both revel in her daughter’s life and to recover from the nightmare of her birth. Anaïs would never be the friend that Sanaa had been. She was too young, too shy, too obedient. And she was terrified of Erik. Sanaa had never been afraid of Erik. No, Anaïs could never be her friend. But she could be something like a lost cousin. Something like family. Something to fill the void in her heart where her mother or aunties or sisters might have resided, if she had any. The girl knew how to take care of both mother and child; how to prepare herbal teas to increase Christine’s milk, to keep Aurelie clean and clothed, to discreetly wash out the blood covered linens in cold water.<br/>
     Erik did not like Anaïs. Her constant presence meant he had to mask himself in his own home. He found this intolerable and he would sequester himself in his workshop until she went away each evening. She served as a reminder of the limits of his ability to care for his family. He did not know how to keep an infant alive. He did not know what Christine needed to keep Aurelie alive. All the blood that continued to leak out of his wife disturbed him greatly. He never knew how unsettling blood could be. It is different when it comes out of the one you love. </p><p>     When Aurelie was around three months old, Christine decided she wanted to go to mass. Anaïs came to help her dress herself and to carry Aurelie. Christine was still weak and needed assistance to get in and out of the rented carriage. Many people at the church crowded around her to offer their congratulations and to admire her little girl. <br/>
“But where is M. Garnier?” they asked.<br/>
“He is not well.” <br/>
     He is so often not well, they thought quietly.<br/>
“Please, send him our regards, Cécile.”<br/>
     The priest came to her to clasp her hands and to express his thanks to God that she had recovered and returned. <br/>
“It will be Easter in just a few weeks. Please, have Aurelie baptized with the other new infants of the village.”<br/>
     Christine considered carefully how to discuss this with Erik. But not carefully enough. <br/>
“Aurelie will be baptized at Easter and I would like for you to be there.”<br/>
“I cannot be there.”<br/>
“But really, they are fine people and they love her already. They wouldn’t say anything. I promise.”<br/>
     He was disgusted. How could she even ask? <br/>
“I know you do not believe in these things. I know you do not believe in God. But I want you there next to me,” she pleaded. She spoke freely, thoughtlessly. “They ask about you and I have nothing to tell them. It’s as if I am married to a shadow. Or worse, it is as if I am a widow and only pretending my husband is alive.”<br/>
     This cut him deeply. He clenched his hands together. In other times he might have broken his own fingers in rage. He walked away from her quickly, before he gave in to any base emotion. He rushed downstairs and threw himself into his music.<br/>
     But why should he be so afraid of the village? He had walked about from Constantinople to Karachi without fear. What about these feeble French villagers was more frightening to him than anyone they met along the way to Lahore? He simply does not want to go, she thought. He does not care. He had forcefully kept her from more than one sacrament before, and made a mockery of several others. He would not prevent her from baptizing her own daughter! Life was fragile and fleeting and she would not wait.<br/>
     Easter morning, as she prepared to leave for the church with Anaïs and Aurelie, she looked for him, to ask once more if he would accompany them. She stood at the top of the stairs and called out to him, as she did not like to go down into his room. There was no answer from underground. <br/>
     The church was covered in flowers. Though she did not play the organ, the chosen hymns were beautiful. It was a lovely spring day and Christine should have felt very happy. But instead she felt the ghost-pain of her husband at her side. Like a missing limb.      <br/>
     The congregation crowded around the marble baptismal font at the back of the church. Babies were passed up to the priest one by one. He took Aurelie, dressed in her white linen and lace gown, and carefully leaned her over the font. She cooed like a little dove in a birdbath as he poured the water over her head. Dr. Bisset and his wife stood as godparents. It was all wrong.</p><p>     Anaïs pulled at her sleeve.<br/>
“Madame, look,” she said, discreetly nodding towards the loft above them. Christine lifted her gaze and saw him, standing in the shadows, his amber-lit eyes locked on her. She could not contain her tears, which could easily have been mistaken for tears of happiness, but were in fact tears of guilt.</p><p>     He was not home when they arrived at the house. They had been delayed by a reception of cake and champagne and many kisses. Anaïs stayed until Aurelie was napping, and then went to celebrate the rest of the day with her own family. Christine nervously awaited his return. The sun set and she lay down with an awful ache in her chest. She stroked her baby’s cheek until they were both asleep. <br/>
     The low and mournful cry of his organ woke her. She rose out of bed and crept downstairs. He stopped playing, but did not turn around. She came up behind him and lightly touched his shoulder. <br/>
“My love,” she whispered. He hung his head. He had been weeping. She slowly sat down next to him, unsure if he would reject her or embrace her. “My love, I am so sorry. Please, please forgive me.” She tentatively folded her arms around his neck. With a sudden movement he pulled her to him and buried his face in her chest. Relief flooded her. “Oh my angel, it was all wrong without you!”<br/>
“Don’t you know how much I wished to stand next to you? She is mine too!”<br/>
“I know, my darling, I am so sorry. It should have been different. It didn’t have to be with everyone else. I just wanted -”<br/>
“You deserve a husband who can stand next to you. She deserves a father who can -”<br/>
“Don’t! Don’t say these things!”<br/>
     He clutched her more tightly. Tears and snot ran down his face and onto her breasts. “Please don’t say you feel like a widow! It was me that felt like a widow - and you who almost left me. I saw Death hold your hand. You almost went away with him!”<br/>
“I know,” she shivered in his arms. “But I didn’t! I didn’t go with him!”<br/>
“Don’t you know I would have died if you had died? I could not live without you. I do not want to live in a world where you are not,” he wept as if she were dying all over again. “You are wrong, you know. It isn’t that I do not believe in God. It’s that he has forgotten me. He left me unfinished. He has never remembered poor Erik, in all his wretched life. But I prayed for you and you came back to me. And I wanted to be there today. I do not want her to be forgotten by him, as I was.”<br/>
“You were there. I saw you. I saw you up there, hiding in the shadows. Oh my love, please forgive me.”</p><p>     Slowly she resumed the life she had built before Aurelie’s birth. She regained her strength. She played the organ at mass on Sundays. She welcomed her students back into her foyer. In the evenings she would take Aurelie to the beach to sit on a blanket or to play in the sand while Erik swam in the dark waters. Eventually Aurelie was moved into her own room, to sleep in a white crib. But she made her way back into their bed each night.<br/>
     Mme. Lemieux requested that her daughter Lenore learn to sing Laudate Dominum, and for her younger sister Annabelle to accompany her on piano. It was months of torture for all four of them: the sisters, their teacher, and Erik, shielding his ears in the basement. <br/>
     Christine suspected there was some reason Mme. Lemieux made this request. Her question was answered in early December when Annabelle shyly handed her a sealed envelope. <br/>
“Our parents are hosting a small party on Twelfth Night.”<br/>
“Maman says you must come,” Lenore added. “And M. Garnier too.” <br/>
     Christine smiled.<br/>
“That’s very sweet, my darlings. I’m not sure that will be possible. But now that I know you will be performing at a party, we must practice more. Much more.”<br/>
     Erik read the invitation himself and noted that his fake name had been written with care on the envelope. <br/>
“You must want to go,” he said, tapping the paper against his chin.<br/>
“Of course I do,” she said softly. “But there is no need.”<br/>
“Twelfth night is a night for tricksters,” he said. “What if, just to turn the world upside down, an unexpected mummer should crash the Lemieux household that night?”<br/>
“You wouldn’t be unexpected - you were invited. But surely you wouldn’t go near that party, full of all the little provincial people you hate. Especially considering you have already previewed the entertainment.”<br/>
“What if I did want to go? Would you want me to be there?”</p><p>     She had two evening dresses to choose from: one white, one red, each bookends to a story she could tell no one. She chose red. He donned a dark suit, a light, clean mask and gloves. She didn’t understand what had changed. They had been in the village for three years and he had never wanted to meet any of these people. Suddenly he seemed excited to dress up and go out, as if they were in Constantinople again, preparing to perform at the Embassy. Except that a cold January wind blew in from the Atlantic. <br/>
     Anaïs came and put Aurelie to bed. She would sleep on a little cot next to the crib. Christine bent over the railing to kiss her daughter before they left. Erik did the same. It all felt too normal. <br/>
     It was a small party of five couples: les Bisset, les Carpentier, les DuBois, les Garnier, les Lemieux, and the two Lemieux sisters. Christine held his arm affectionately as he knocked on the door. How normal could he really be? He was quite charming that night at the Embassy. He hadn’t done anything strange or emotional or violent. <br/>
     Mme. Lemieux greeted Christine with kisses and even offered Erik her hand. It seemed the woman was determined not to betray any fear. As if Erik were a man like any other. The reactions from the other guests were mixed. Of course, Dr. Bisset had seen them both at their very worst, and still greeted them warmly, along with his wife. The other two couples, who were not so prepared, appeared much more unsettled by the tall, masked man in their midst. Even if it was the beginning of Carnaval.<br/>
     Christine and Erik were given glasses of champagne and settled themselves into a corner near the fireplace. Christine openly admired a pair of blue and white vases on the mantel. There was an old man playing a flute in a sea of clouds on one, a woman feeding a deer on the other. M. Lemieux approached them.<br/>
“How lovely they are,” she said to him.<br/>
“Yes, I was sent to Indochine in my younger days of service. I don’t know how I managed to bring them back without even a crack in either one.” He turned to Erik. “Have you ever been to the Orient, M. Garnier?”<br/>
“I am but a simple musician. I have never traveled far from the stage.”<br/>
“Ah, you are a musician as well? My wife and I have been most pleased with your wife’s instruction. Our girls have improved over these last few years.” His wife caught his eye across the room. “Ah well, to the Empire,” he said, raising his glass for a moment. “If you will excuse me,” he politely took his leave.<br/>
“To the Empire,” Erik snickered. “If he only knew. Have the Lemieux girls improved so much?” <br/>
     Christine stifled a laugh.<br/>
“You are witness to my efforts. They are hopeless.”<br/>
“I could have done better.”<br/>
“You would have made them cry. No one would let you teach their children.”<br/>
“Will you?”<br/>
“Aurelie was born talented. And she will have the best teacher in you, my love.” She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. Then she remembered where she was and pulled it back. No need to draw more attention to his face. Already there was a line of champagne dripping from it.</p><p>     Mme. Lemieux brought out the galette des rois. Annabelle excitedly held a gold paper crown in her hands. The cake was cut into twelve equal slices. Annabelle climbed underneath the table and began to shout out names as Lenore handed out the little plates of cake, each according to her sister’s blind instructions. The fluffy, puff pastry was filled with a creamy almond paste, flavored with cardamom and cinnamon. Christine closed her eyes as she bit into each bite. The cake was so sweet that all the guests stopped talking for a moment and savored their piece. Before anyone knew better, all the cake was gone and no one had found the fève. Until all eyes fell on the untouched slice of cake before Erik.<br/>
     Annabelle nervously rotated the paper crown in her hand. She was itching to place it on someone’s head. Christine felt a moment of panic as all eyes were upon them. She took his plate and smiled at the table as she quickly shoveled sickly sweet forkfuls into her mouth until she found it; the porcelain baby. She spit it back into her hand and held it up in triumph. Annabelle stepped forward and offered Erik the crown. He leaned his head down so that she might, with a bit of trembling, coronate his ugly head.<br/>
     The guests were given more champagne - they would need it - and moved into the family’s music room. Annabelle sat behind the piano as Lenore took her place in front of it. <br/>
She began, in a high, sweet voice that could barely contain a croak:</p><p>
  <em>Laudate Dominum omnes gentes</em><br/>
<em>Laudate eum, omnes populi</em>
</p><p>     Annabelle’s fingers stumbled clumsily over the notes. Lenore sang piously, each crack in her throat a testament to her unwarranted faith in herself. <br/>
“This piece was not a proper choice for a night like this,” Erik whispered into her ear.<br/>
“It was their mother’s choice. Not mine.”<br/>
“This is a night for chaos.”<br/>
“Please, Erik. Please do not cause any.” <br/>
     He grinned at her, the paper crown still atop his head.<br/>
“I will behave. I promise.” He downed another glass of champagne. In another life he would have very much enjoyed causing chaos at a party such as this. He could have played any number of tricks on these people. He would have delighted in their terror. Thank God it isn’t red wine, she thought, watching a clear line of liquid leak out from under his mask, wetting his front.<br/>
     When the girls’ performance was over and the polite applause died down, Erik’s voice rose from the back of the room, “Now we should hear from their teacher - for some <em>real</em> music!” <br/>
“Yes, yes,” the others agreed, ignoring his insult. “Please sing for us, Cécile!” <br/>
     Christine bit her lip in anger. She shook her head. But the other guests insisted. She felt forced to stand up. <br/>
“May I suggest <em>Je ris de me voir</em>?” he asked. “May I accompany you?” <br/>
     She sighed and consented. She did not want to sing, but he had made it impossible for her to refuse. They walked to the front of the room. Erik took his place at the piano, while she stood with her back to him to face the other guests. <br/>
      She snapped into practiced professionalism:</p><p>
  <em>Ah! je ris de me voir, si belle en ce miroir</em><br/>
<em>Ah! I laugh to see myself, so beautiful in this mirror</em>
</p><p>     He watched her as he played, her red and gold gown sparkling in the corner of his eye. He thought of all the secrets sewn into that dress and the night she had worn it last. He still felt fierce possession over her voice. He had taught her this song. And he felt a pang of guilt. She could have been great. She could command the Paris stage even now were it not for him. </p><p>
  <em>Non! Non! ce n’est plus toi! Non, non, ce n’est plus ton visage </em><br/>
<em>No! No! this is no longer you! No, no, this is no longer your face</em>
</p><p>     He thought of the stack of unanswered invitations they left on the desk in their room in Constantinople. What if they had stayed and she had performed at every request? Could they have made a life abroad? What if he hadn’t diverted that letter in Marseille and that boy had come looking for her? What if she had escaped from him as he always feared she would? What if she had stood before the priest in Marseille and refused to marry him? What if she had never learned to love him? What if, when he offered her release from his house by the lake, what if she had left him there, all alone? He would surely be dead by now. <br/>
     He could not live in a world where she was not.</p><p>
  <em>C’est la fille d’un roi, ce n’est plus toi!</em><br/>
<em>This is the daughter of a king, this is no longer you!</em>
</p><p>     And now Aurelie! <em>No, no, no.</em> He could not live in a world where she was not at his side. To imagine such a world was to imagine his own death, his daughter’s death.<br/>
     The song finished and the guests applauded. <br/>
“Sing us another, Cécile!” they demanded. <br/>
“<em>Roi de Thule?</em>” he suggested. <br/>
     She shook her head.<br/>
“No. I will sing alone.” <br/>
     He sat at the piano silently, his hands clasped in his lap before him. <br/>
She began:</p><p>
  <em>O, Silibrand körde uppå höga loftesvala</em><br/>
<em>O, Silibrand hurried to the top of the mound</em>
</p><p>     He closed his black eyes so that they did not burn before strangers. But what was this fairy music from her lips? Why had she never sung this sweetness to him before? </p><p><em>Allt under den linden så gröna</em><br/>
<em>All under the green linden tree</em><br/>
  <br/>
     What nostalgia had taken a hold of her heart just suddenly? Were they due for another nighttime ride to Perros-Guirec? Was this the kind of music she might have expected a real Angel of Music to sing to her, the music of fairies and linden flowers, rather than the garish glamor of the Opera? What untold secrets she held! His wife was a woman full of mysteries still.</p><p><em>Där fick han se sin dotter i lunden fara</em><br/>
<em>There he saw his daughter wander in the grove</em><br/>
 <br/>
     Dr. Bisset was also moved by her song. One by one, pieces of a story came together in his mind. The mystery of his young patient began to reveal itself to him. What language was this? </p><p>
  <em>I riden så varliga genom lunden med henne</em><br/>
<em>Ride gently through the grove with her</em>
</p><p>     Something Scandanavian? Could it be Swedish? Garnier, Garnier, Cécile Garnier. But at her bedside, her husband had never called her Cécile, had he? Her strange, menacing husband had called her by another name as he wept over her. What was it? Christine? Christine Garnier? There was another name that floated in his mind as he listened to her sweet north-country song. Daaé, Daaé, Daaé. She had been abducted from the Garnier, the Palais Garnier, what, four years before? She had disappeared from the stage and she was never heard from again, wasn’t that how the story went? And if he recalled, weren’t there several murders proceeding the story, including that of a Comte? Could it be? Their little music teacher was not who she said she was.</p><p>     In the carriage ride home, he wrapped her in his arms, drunk and giddy.<br/>
“Look at me, Christine,” he grinned, his paper crown slipping to the side. “Je suis vraiment le roi!”<br/>
“But not of Lahore,” she smiled.<br/>
“No. Not of Lahore,” he agreed.</p><p> </p><p>_______________________________________________</p><p> </p><p>Laudate Dominum, Mozart: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMJK8Tkqrg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMJK8Tkqrg</a><br/>
I looked for a video that was not super professional with little accompaniment. I think this singer is great, but the simple production of the video helped me imagine this song fitting into the party. Imagine this song sung by a French teenager in 1885 or so, but poorly. Hurts your ears bad. </p><p>I riden så, sung by Myrkur: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Duhh4nHdE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Duhh4nHdE</a><br/>
This song was exactly what I was looking for in a Swedish folk song for Christine to sing. This video provides the English translation of the lyrics. They are hauntingly beautiful. Myrkur is Danish and commenters have said she sings with a Danish accent, but this version really helped me visualize Christine singing something nostalgic at the party.</p><p>See Chapter 24 for links and notes to all the music that inspired this story.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Eternal Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Christine receives an unexpected visitor in the village and our story comes to an end.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the final chapter of Le roi de Lahore.<br/>Chapter 24 is a list of music (with links) and notes. </p><p>Writing this last chapter was so bittersweet. These two lived in my head for a whole two months. I'm both relieved and sad that it's over. I really hope readers have enjoyed this story. Thank you so much for reading to the end. Beijos!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Plenty of young people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each other since!”</em>
</p><p>     When they arrived home, Christine found little Aurelie sleeping not in her crib but on the cot, tangled in Anaïs’ arms. The little creature had a way of getting what she wanted and what she always wanted was to sleep in someone’s warm embrace. Erik wished that he could gaze upon his daughter as well, but he stayed away from Anaïs. He did not actually want to frighten the young woman, as much as it amused him when it happened that way.<br/>
     He helped his wife out of her gown. How things had changed. Once, she would have flinched in fear at his touch, and now she leaned into his fingers as he worked down the buttons. Once, his hands would have fluttered over her shoulders, unsure of where to land, or if they would be welcomed when they did. Now he grasped her firmly to kiss her neck. And not only did she allow it, she liked it! <br/>
     He ran his hand down her chemise, to gather the skirt in his fist. She caught his hand and held it a moment. While she had fully recovered from Aurelie’s birth, she had not yet allowed him to return to her in this way. She found it almost impossible to string the words together. “I am still afraid of the pain,” she whispered.<br/>
“I do not want to hurt you. Let me worship you in other ways.” <br/>
     He laid her down so that she was gazing up at the ceiling he had constructed over their bed. A thousand stars were shining over her. He climbed onto the bed, crouching like a cat, a glint of mischief in his cat-eyes. <br/>
“Let me love you, Christine.”<br/>
     He ran his thin fingers up her legs so that she shivered. He irreverently pulled her legs open, but before burying his head into her sex, he stopped to look down at her, to stroke her with his fingers, to drink in the sight and smell of her. And she let him! <br/>
     She lay there with quickening breath, her hands over her head. The stars above her began to oscillate as pleasure filled her eyes. Each tiny mirror a different possibility, a different story, different eternity. His tongue worked itself over her, through all her folds, around her bud, slipping into her core. She whispered his name and it was honey to his ears. He shuddered with pleasure at the sound of his own name coming from her mouth. <br/>
“Say you love me, Christine!”<br/>
“I love you, Erik. I love you!”<br/>
“Say that you have always loved me!”<br/>
     She writhed and sighed. <br/>
“Say it!” He looked up at her.<br/>
     He dug two fingers into her. He brushed them upwards against her inside. She began to tremble in pleasure. “Say it! Oh my angel, tell me you have always loved me, from the first time you heard my voice. Because I have loved you from the first time I heard you sing. I have loved you from the first time I laid eyes on you. I have always loved you.” <br/>
     He pushed his fingers too deeply and she winced. He softened his touch. He hung his head again and put his mouth on her. He hummed so that the vibrations of his voice purred into her.<br/>
“<em>Say it</em>,” he begged, one more time.<br/>
“Don’t look back, Erik. It doesn't matter. I love you now and I will never, never leave you.” <br/>
     He pushed her over the edge and her cries were all the sweetness in this world.</p><p>     They lay together, her back pressed into the curve of his lithe body, his arms possessively locked around her. He thought she might fall asleep but instead he felt her little hand make its way behind her, between them, seeking him out. She took the cold thing in her warm hand and began to stroke it. He moved slowly against her. How things had changed, he thought. He had everything he had ever wanted. And more - he had never even known he wanted Aurelie until the day she was born. He had everything now but a face. <br/>
    She guided him towards her. <br/>
“I do not want to hurt you,” he gasped. But neither did he want to stop; it had been such a long time.<br/>
“I know what is on the other side, though. On the other side of the pain there will be pleasure.”<br/>
“I do not want to hurt you,” he resisted. He had hurt her so much already.<br/>
“It will only hurt me a little. And then you will fill me up with pleasure.”</p><p>     In the morning her breasts were leaking milk. She went to take Aurelie from Anaïs’ sleeping arms and brought her back into their bed. She nursed her until the child fell asleep again and then they spent the early morning admiring their daughter’s peaceful face nestled between them. <br/>
“I will teach her to sing to make the angels weep,” he said, stroking the black hair around her face.<br/>
“As long as you do not make her the one to weep.”<br/>
“Never. I will never make her cry.”</p><p>     It was springtime when Christine received an unexpected visitor. She found him waiting for her as she was leaving the church one Sunday morning, Anaïs carrying Aurelie just behind her. She knew him instantly, his astrakhan in perfect place, his bright green eyes filled with relief to see her.<br/>
     She thought about running from him. But she remembered that he had never been anything but kind to her. She nodded politely and crossed the street towards him.<br/>
“Mlle. Daaé, you are alive,” he said softly, with astonishment.<br/>
“I haven’t been Mlle. Daaé for some time now,” she said with a forced smile. “I am Mme. Garnier now.”<br/>
“Of course,” he said. He stood quietly for a moment, taking her in. “I have looked for you for so long.”<br/>
     She was moved. She had worried, from the very beginning, that no one was looking for her. Even when she had worried that they were.<br/>
“How did you find me?”<br/>
“We have much to discuss. May I accompany you home?”<br/>
     She looked back at Anaïs.<br/>
“Little bird, please take Aurelie with you in the carriage. I will walk back with my dear friend here. We will be right behind you.” <br/>
     Anaïs shook her head in horror at this idea. <br/>
“Please, I have some important things to discuss. Please take Aurelie home so that she can begin her nap on time.”<br/>
“I am sorry, Madame. Please don’t make me go back alone. I will carry her myself.”<br/>
     Christine shifted her weight in frustration. <br/>
“Follow behind us, then. And don’t walk too closely.”<br/>
     They set out from the village on foot, towards the house by the sea.<br/>
“Mme. Garnier, are you well?” he asked when Anaïs was far enough behind. She was struggling to keep Aurelie on her hip. The little girl wanted to walk on her own. “Did he really go through with it? Did he force you to marry him?”<br/>
“It was my decision.”<br/>
“He did not force you then?”<br/>
     She closed her eyes and saw it: his gloved hand over hers, the pen scratch over the priest’s paper, a signature that did not look like her own.<br/>
“No. It was my decision. Please, why have you come, Monsieur?”<br/>
“I had to see with my own eyes that he had not harmed you. I have traversed this entire country looking for you.”<br/>
“Why?” she asked in amazement.<br/>
“Because I feel responsible for him and his terrible actions. If I hadn’t saved his life once long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt so many others - including you. But I couldn’t find either of you. You had disappeared completely, until just a few months ago. Where have you been all this time? I am certain I searched all of Brittany in the first year, including this very village.”<br/>
     She had never told the story to anyone. Something about the man made it impossible for her to continue lying. If she spoke the truth out loud, it would no longer feel like a dream. All that happened would cease to be fantasy. It was her chance to fully grasp reality.<br/>
“He took me out of the country.”<br/>
“Oh, my child,” he sighed. “Where did he take you?”<br/>
“He took me all the way to Lahore.”<br/>
“Lahore!” This agitated the poor man. “What horrors did he show you there?”<br/>
     She turned behind her, to be certain Anaïs was at a proper distance. She told him everything. The mirrored room, the fake wedding, the murder, the attempted murder, the Sheesh Mahal, the stag hunt, the malaria, the other murder, the sleep walking, the night traveling, the real wedding that was not her own wedding.<br/>
“He took me to your country. It was perhaps the most beautiful part of all of it.”<br/>
“My country? What did you see there? Did he show you the Caspian Sea?”<br/>
“No. I saw only the moon and the stars. We traveled only at night. But I learned a few words of your language.” The old man smiled brightly. She said in her rusted, unused Farsi, “I had a horse. Her name was Mahtab.”<br/>
“Mahtab?” he said back to her in Farsi. “That is a beautiful name for a horse. How did you know to give her such a name?”<br/>
“A friend,” and here she returned to French. She did not want to talk about Farhad. “Everyone there was very kind to me. And in Lahore too. Only the patriarch of the family was cruel. But really, no crueler than Erik himself could be.”<br/>
“I wish I could have saved you from all of it.”<br/>
     She heard the padding of Aurelie’s feet on the gravel. She turned and lifted the girl into her arms.<br/>
“She is quite beautiful,” he commented.<br/>
“Thank you, Monsieur,” she shifted Aurelie’s weight. “How did you find us, then?”<br/>
“It was a few months ago. I heard from Mifroid, the commissary of police who handled your case. He called on me. He knew I was still preoccupied with finding you, although his department had closed the case long ago. He had received word from the acquaintance of an acquaintance with a small tip: a beautiful music teacher and her masked husband, who lived in a little Breton seaside village under the name <em>Garnier</em>. She apparently sang a lovely little Swedish song at a party this past winter. I thought, could it be? After all this time?”<br/>
“Erik and his stupid idea for a fake name!” she laughed bitterly.<br/>
“Oh, I don’t know that it was so stupid, Mademoiselle, excuse me, Madame. Nothing he does is by accident, even if we don’t understand his motives. Don’t you think he wanted to be caught, eventually? Who would he protect you from, if no one were looking for you? He may have kept you in the shadows, but he left a trail of breadcrumbs.”<br/>
“Will you turn him in? Is that why you have come here? Justice for Buquet, for the Comte de Chagny?”<br/>
“No. I came here only to find you. I thought, please forgive me, but I thought I would come here to save you.”<br/>
     She turned to meet his eyes.<br/>
“And now? Do you think I need saving, now that you have seen me?”<br/>
“Do you think so?”<br/>
     She looked down at her daughter, who by now had laid her head heavily on her mother’s shoulder. “No.” <br/>
“Then no. I do not believe you need saving. I am quite relieved to find you here in this village. You seem to have carved a life out for yourself. What is her name?”<br/>
“Aurelie.”<br/>
“You seem to be tired. May I hold her for a moment, to relieve you?” he held out his arms. Christine hesitated. The man had always been so kind. But Erik had said many times that they were not really friends. He was right though, her arms were tiring. Aurelie slid easily, sleepily into his embrace. He gently adjusted her head onto his own shoulder and carried her the rest of the way.<br/>
“And the Vicomte?” she asked hesitantly, with a bit of shame.<br/>
“Oh, how he looked for you,” he said softly. “He accompanied me on many journeys. All the way to Perros, all the way to Marseilles. I am afraid that neither of us had the imagination to look outside of France.” <br/>
     She closed her eyes. They had gone to Marseilles, but they were too late. Too late. <br/>
“He is married now.”<br/>
“Please, do not tell him. Please do not tell anyone you have found me.”<br/>
“Do not worry, Madame. Madame sounds so strange. May I call you Christine?”<br/>
“Only Erik calls me Christine now.”<br/>
“Forgive me then, Madame. I came here only for myself, to put my own heart at ease. Of all the possible outcomes, of all the possible ways this story could have ended, I am happy that this is what I have found. And, as much as I detest him now, a part of me is content that he has found peace at last.”<br/>
     Her eyes began to fill with tears. She was always crying!<br/>
“It has been very hard, Monsieur. It was -” He lightly touched her hand. He knew. He had already imagined how hard it had been. It was the reason he was before her now. “You may not believe me. But I do love him,” she wept.<br/>
“Of course, of course you love him, in your own way.”<br/>
“No! I love him as his wife. My destiny is so tangled in his, I cannot imagine my world without him.” Tears streamed liberally down her face now. “The day Aurelie was born, I nearly died. He covered me in snow, he gave me his own blood. He saved me. He gave me a daughter and he gave me back my life. We will be bound in blood, forever.”<br/>
“I see. I did not understand before.” They walked quietly a few paces. “I know very well what it means to have one’s destiny bound to Erik’s. It seems the three of us are linked together in some strange web. Me, having saved his life once, him saving yours, you saving mine. Did you forget, Madame? It was you that saved me that night. You saved us all."  <br/>
“Please, please do not tell anyone who we are,” she cried.<br/>
“You have my word. I think that finally I am ready to let him go.” <br/>
     She stopped walking. They were on the country lane that led to the house. It was lined with wildflowers and tall grass.<br/>
“Do you want to see him?”<br/>
“Erik? No, no. Now that I have seen you, there is no need to agitate him with my presence. He did try to kill me the last time we saw each other. I fear it would only make your day harder than it should be.”<br/>
“I have learned to handle his agitation,” she smiled, wiping away her tears. “You are welcome to come inside for tea.”<br/>
“No, I thank you.”<br/>
“Then it might be better if you turn around here, before we get too close to the house.”<br/>
“Oh, yes. That is a good idea.” He gently cradled the sleeping Aurelie in his arms before giving her back to Christine. “She really is a precious child. She must bring him at least a little joy?”<br/>
     She said in Farsi, “She is the light in his eyes.” He smiled sadly, for he knew he must say goodbye now. <br/>
     Christine stood and watched as he walked down the lane and out of sight. He was the only person in the world now who knew everything about her. He was the only one who saw her story with clear eyes. Erik could only see their story as he had written it in his mind. But the man walking away from her, who she would never see again, carried the truth of her strange life inside of him.</p><p><br/>
     When she returned, Erik was at his underground organ, brooding, composing. She did not know if she should tell him anything of the visit. If, by some miracle, he did not already know, then maybe he need never know. <br/>
     In the evening they sat by their fire, drinking wine. His eyes flickered like the flame, but not of the flame. He caught her staring at him and tilted his head.<br/>
“Do you finally find me handsome, my wife?” <br/>
“I have found you handsome for some time now.”<br/>
“How is that possible?” he huffed, looking down into his cup. She waited for him to look up again and meet her eyes. She touched his cheekbone. <br/>
“I see my future in your face. One day, my nose will rot away and I will look no different than you. When we meet in the afterlife, it is I who will frighten you.”<br/>
     Her words moved him as much as they murdered him. It was truly the declaration of love he deserved. He took her hand.<br/>
“You don’t believe in corporeal restoration then?” he asked.<br/>
“No. I know for certain that our bodies will only rot away and our bones will be the last to go; ephemeral, but closer to the eternal than flesh and blood. And that is what I see when I look at you. Something closer to eternity.”<br/>
“Christine,” he murmured. He lifted her hand to his face and pushed her fingers through the hole in his wine stained cheek. She did not pull away. He kept his lips closed as he pressed her fingertips over his back teeth and bit them softly. He closed his burning, black eyes and rubbed his tongue against her. Still, she did not pull away. She was afraid that any drag on his skin might tear him further. And she liked it.<br/>
     She ran a finger along the top of his exposed gums. She hooked this finger around the back of his teeth and gently pulled his face closer to her.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I thought about this last paragraph for a long time and I think I took a little inspiration from the story of Pedro and Inês. For the Portuguese, saying Pedro &amp; Inês would be like saying Romeo &amp; Juliet for English-speakers, or Layla &amp; Majnun for Persians. It’s a grim story: Inês is murdered and when Pedro ascends to the Portuguese throne, he exhumes her body and forces the royal court to kiss her rotting hand in allegiance. This has always fascinated me and it probably wormed its way into this story and ideas about eternal vs. earthly love.</p><p>Thank you so much for reading to the end. Please let me know what you thought of the ending, or the story as a whole. Even if you haven't commented so far, I would love to hear from you. Thank you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Mixed Tape & Liner Notes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Chapter 23 is the final chapter of Le roi de Lahore.</p><p>Because I am the kind of person that would still make mixed tapes for my friends if only they would let me. Here are all the links to the music referenced in this story. It was very useful to see performances of the opera pieces, from Faust and Roméo et Juliette especially, to better describe what Christine and Erik were doing physically as they sang together, how they were touching each other, or meeting each other’s eyes. </p><p>While the ALW soundtrack is legend, listening to the operas referenced by Leroux has made me dream of a high-budget French language film of Leroux’s novel, using the music from these operas, as he describes it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>Clever Quills </b>has written a story that picks up after Chapter 23 and continues to follow the strange little family in the house by the sea. I highly recommend it, it is both sweet and dark and I love it: <strong><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549365/chapters/64718923">Heaven's Light</a></strong></p><p> </p><p><b>Le roi de Lahore</b> , J.Massenet, Grand scene de Indra, Gran Teatro La Fenice di Venezia 2005: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBM8n5zNqY"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBM8n5zNqY </a></p><p><b>Chapter 2, Le roi de Lahore:</b> Erik requests that Christine recite the story of Le roi de Lahore to him before bed. This video demonstrates the extreme orientalist fantasy of this opera. Sita and Alim, with their trap doors and eternal love, haunt Erik’s desire for his relationship with Christine all the way to Chapter 17, even 22. In some ways, his desire for her is just as fantastical as Massenet’s vision of Lahore.</p><p> </p><p><b>Faust</b>, Gounod, Alagna-Mula-Gay-Altinoglu, Bastille 2011:</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7oVDMVXyqw"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7oVDMVXyqw </a>
</p><p><b>Chapters 4 &amp; 5, Ascension:</b> This is an entire performance of Faust. In the novel, Christine is abducted near the very end of her performance as Marguerite, which leaves her with unresolved resentment in our story here. The emotional final scene that Christine and Erik sing together at the end of Chapter 5 begins at 2:35.</p><p><b>The Jewel Song/Je ris de me voir, </b> Anastasia Prokofieva soprano, Sergey Rybin piano 2012: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIRYuSGVKY&amp;list=RDQzIRYuSGVKY&amp;start_radio=1"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIRYuSGVKY&amp;list=RDQzIRYuSGVKY&amp;start_radio=1 </a></p><p><b>Chapter 5:</b> This specific performance of <em> Je ris de me voir </em> informed Christine’s Embassy performance. Imagine the elegant Ms. Prokofieva as Christine in a white dress, and Mr. Rybin as a masked Erik at the piano. The piano is important - there are many videos of this song performed in front of a full orchestra that do not really fit the more intimate performance in Chapter 5.</p><p> </p><p><b>Laila Majnu</b>, Likh Kar Tera Naam Zameen Par - Mohd Rafi &amp; Lata Mangeshkar 1976:</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTEpdQmuJw"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTEpdQmuJw </a>
</p><p><b>Chapter 8, Leyli o Majnun</b> : The linked song is actually in Urdu, not Farsi, but it illustrates the emotion and desperation of the story. In Chapter 8, Farhad recites the story as poetry. This epic love story has traveled far and there is poetry and music written about these two in numerous languages across the region. I first came across the story when I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, a novel set in Afghanistan. The story plays an important role again in Chapter 9, when Erik makes Christine define the kind of love she does <em> not </em> want, and again in Chapter 16.</p><p> </p><p><b>Mirza Sahiba</b>, Harbhajan Mann 2011:</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1g_UgTifo"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1g_UgTifo </a>
</p><p><b>Chapter 13, Mirza and Sahiban</b>: This video is in Punjabi and illustrates the epic love story Sanaa tells Christine in Chapter 13. The story is referenced again in Chapters 16 and 17.</p><p>Erik and Christine use stories of the opera to communicate with each other. As they are traveling through Persia and Punjab, it was important to me to also include love stories from those cultures. Leyli &amp; Majnun and Mirza &amp; Sahiban have lessons for us all. They were real people (you can visit their tombs still), contrasted with Le roi de Lahore, which is a complete fantasy. </p><p> </p><p><b>Roméo et Juliette, Nuit d'hyménée</b>, Gounod, Royal Opera House 1994:</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8LsHwJXfA"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8LsHwJXfA </a>
</p><p><b>Chapter 17, La destinée m'enchaîne à toi: </b> In the novel, after the masquerade, Erik calls to Christine in her dressing room by singing “<em>La destinée m'enchaîne à toi sans retour!"</em>  The performance in this video informed the physical nature of Erik and Christine’s duet in Chapter 17. Imagine this in 1880’s Lahore, with an audience segregated by gender and at least nominally Muslim, and imagine that it’s Erik singing - you can see that it might have been unsettling. And then Baba leads them all in laughter.</p><p> </p><p><b>Orphée et Eurydice, J'ai perdu mon Eurydice,</b> Gluck, Juan Diego Flórez, The Royal Opera 2015 : <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MCOKMuwKkA"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MCOKMuwKkA </a></p><p><b>Chapter 19,</b> <b>Orphée et Eurydice et Hadès: </b>They think every song is about them. Erik thinks he knows his place within this story, Christine lets him know otherwise.</p><p> </p><p><b>Laudate Dominum, </b>Mozart</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMJK8Tkqrg"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMJK8Tkqrg </a>
</p><p><b>Chapter 22, Galette des rois</b>: The singer in this video is very good - I just wanted to show a performance of the song that was not with a full orchestra, that was intimate. In the story, the song is sung by one of Christine’s students, and very poorly. </p><p> </p><p><b>I riden så,</b> Myrkur 2017:</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Duhh4nHdE"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Duhh4nHdE </a>
</p><p><b>Chapter 22, Galette des rois</b>: Christine sings this Swedish folk song in a moment of nostalgia. The song is very old and it is possible that this is the kind of folk song her father would have taught her when she was young. It is a song about a father and daughter and death and all of those themes that go along perfectly with this story. You can find the English translation of the lyrics in the comments under the video, and even an explanation of the Norse mythology referenced. It is a haunting song.</p><p> </p><p><b>Aunque es de noche</b>, Rosalía</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-MQzPZ6IE"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-MQzPZ6IE </a>
</p><p><b>Inspiration:</b> Rosalía has been my quarantine soundtrack. I listened to this song specifically when wanting to channel some anger for Christine. The video has some interesting skeleton imagery, which fit my mood when writing too. The lyrics to this song are a poem written by San Juan de la Cruz in 1577. For me, it’s about finding the divine in the darkness, and that worked as inspiration for this story.</p><p> </p><p>Thank you so much for reading - I have so appreciated every comment and encouragement.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549365">Heaven's Light</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverQuill/pseuds/CleverQuill">CleverQuill</a>
    </li>
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